


quarantine

by aprhrodite



Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon, Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (TV), Nancy Drew (Video Games), Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - Franklin W. Dixon & Carolyn Keene
Genre: Brothers, F/M, Friendship/Love, Other, Unrequited Love, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:08:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 44,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11321784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprhrodite/pseuds/aprhrodite
Summary: Frank Hardy fights to survive amid a zombie apocalypse. He needs to find Joe before it's too late.





	1. one

_“Follow me_ ,” a voice croons to my left.

I’m not the skittish type. But now, two inches away from certain death, my heart pounds deep in my chest. The sound is so audible I’m almost certain I’m about to be spotted, so I shift my weight to the balls of my heels, concealing my wide frame behind a bookshelf. I search for the source of the noise, my eyes landing on a silhouette jutting out of the bleak light of a doorway to my left.

“Come on,” the voice whispers.

I peek my head around the corner, scanning the room for any more bodies, perspiration sliding down my neck like wires of tension. I come down onto my knees into a crouch, carefully extending my leg forward. Any noise could prove to be fatal. I scour the ground for any signs of glass, tin, metal—anything that will make a sound beneath my feet—before moving toward the door. The front half of me, my upper torso, glistens with sweat in the sunlight while the latter half of me remains concealed behind the bookshelf. I dare to breathe.

I swallow the remaining notions of fear and quicken my pace, moving along overturned structures and boxes to keep from exposing myself completely. I duck behind an old counter, probably one used as a cash register. Keeping my head low, I fix my gaze on the conjoining room. Seven steps and I’d be inside.

“They’re gone,” the voice says once I’m through the doorway, closing the door behind me with a thud loud enough to make my ears bleed. I stand fully erect again, my legs whining from being crouched for so long. How long was I down there? An hour? Two? I don’t linger on the thought for long. I wiggle my feet and my shoulders, my bone cracking from the strain, and try to find something remarkable about this little room. In an instant, I can see it, my eyes finally landing on a yellow box on a shelf, coated in dust and grime. I reach out for it, overjoyed to hear a distinct, familiar rattling noise on the inside.

Pain shoots through my entire body and I fall back onto my knees, taken aback by the sudden blow. Behind me, a figure steps out and snatches the box from the shelf, peering down at me with a snarl.

“Listen, asshole, I didn’t just save your neck so you could steal all of my shit.”

I dip my head up, blinking in the flickering light, only to see a tall, slender woman with dark hair tangled around her oval face. Her arms, neck, and face are peppered with scratches and scabs, each one older than the last, but I’m sure I don’t look any different. On instinct, I run my hand along the deep gash in my side, the pressure of my fingers against the crooked stitches enough to make me wince.

“Sorry,” I grumble, finding my feet again. She’s a head shorter than me but her eyes don’t leave mine. Her height is no symbol of her strength. She’s not afraid of me. Not here, anyway. I break her gaze only to look around the room. It appears to be some sort of break room, most likely for the employees who used to work… well, whatever this used to be. Grocery store, clothing store, pharmacy, it’s hard to tell. Nearly everything in sight is covered with a thick layer of dust. There’s an old refrigerator in the corner, the top half of the freezer broken and bent in the corner atop of what was once probably a table. Now, the thing looks unrecognizable beneath all the rubble and bricks.

“You got a name, kid?”

“Frank,” I mutter, not bothering to give her another glance.

“Frank,” The woman nods, wiping her forehead with the back of her dirty hand, leaving a black smudge that barely works at her hairline. “What’s your deal? Why are you out here?”

I avoid the question with another question. “What’s _your_ name?”

She makes a noise deep in her throat. “Didn’t know you had the time to get intimate with strangers,” Her left hand clutches the 9mm pistol from the back of her ratted jeans, carefully popping bullets from the yellow box into the clip. “The name’s Jessalyn, but please, spare me the formality and just call me Jess.”

The accent hanging to her words sound southern. I make a mental note of it, trying to find something of use in the nearly destroyed room. “Thanks,” I say, feeling the words stick. “For what you did.”

She shrugs. “There’s not many of us left nowadays. Gotta save who you can.”

“I figured you were going to kill me as soon as I got in here.”

“So why did you come?”

I don’t answer, my eyes drifting back to the door. She knows why. A bullet through the chest would be mercy compared to a death on the streets. Especially with those _things_ crawling around.

She yanks the bottom half of the refrigerator open and tosses me something. She doesn’t let me thank her again, instead pointing with her chin. “Just eat, and shut up.” She unwraps her own granola bar and chews slowly. Food is scarce these days.

I recognize the bar. It’s a power-bar, one I used to take to the gym. But those memories are long gone, washed away with years of fear and torment. I waste no time with the thing, eating it in nearly one bite, letting the flavor consume my mouth before it slides down my throat, hitting the bottom of my empty stomach almost immediately. How long it’s been since I’ve eaten, I don’t know. The waxy coating paper slides through my fingers, landing in another pile of trash.

“There might be some people who operate like that, you know,” Jessalyn sniffs, crumbling up the wrapper and tossing it into the corner. “You know, people killin’ just to survive. But I ain’t like them.”

“Where from?” I say, still fixated on the outline of the door. I’m waiting for a noise, but nothing comes from the other side.

“Georgia,” she says, cracking her knuckles in a row. “But I haven’t been back there in quite some time.”

“Thought I heard a little bit of a drawl,” I say, hopping up on one of the only intact counters, my feet dangling inches from the floor. She rolls her eyes. “I said little, didn’t I?”

“Kids used to make fun of me for it when I was growin’ up,” She rubs her elbows. “But I suppose everyone got served some justice after what happened.” Her voice sounds small and faraway. I don’t prod at her open wounds. We share the same pain. Two people, strangers before this moment, engulfed in a world of suffering.

I release my gaze on the door, my shoulders rounding down in their usual ache. There’s scraps of paper on the ground—scraps of newspapers, journals, even some notes from the office—but the writing is all but legible now, the grime and mold succumbing most of the floor and eating at sides of the walls. The smell of death is prominent, even in Jessalyn’s little haven.

“You got any family left?”

“Yeah,” I say, my voice hitching. “Parents in quarantine. And… well, I’m trying to find another one.”

“Are they safe?”

The comment burns like an insult. She knows just as well as I do that safety isn’t a guarantee, not anywhere, not in this world. The confines of my bedroom weren’t enough to keep me safe, and neither are the electric fences of Quarantine. I don’t know where my brother is, and the thought is enough to shut me up, even for a moment, my stomach molding into an uncomfortable knot. The wound on my side seems to come alive again, the pain licking up the side of my torso. I push against it with calloused hands. It’s enough to get me to stop thinking about Joe, even for a second.

“No idea,” I wince, battling discomfort on my face, but Jess is observant. She crosses the room effortlessly, hands working on the hem of my shirt.

“Just let me see the damn thing,” she says. I pull my arm away, almost expecting blood to pool out of my side. She tugs my shirt up to my sternum, keeping her finger away from the sensitive areas, instead pawing around on my stomach to get a better few. “Lord Almighty, who in the hell gave you these stitches?”

I don’t bother looking at them. They’re ugly and choppy, a giant web of thread blotched against bruised and bloody skin, tender to touch. I squeeze my eyes shut as the pain takes over again, ripping through my ribcage.

“It’s infected, you know.”

I laugh at her, angry, and it sounds like a bark. “Very funny,” I snap, chewing on the bottom of my lip.

“No, I mean seriously infected. Medically infected.” Jess matches my tone, her eyes darkening. “You know, the kind of infected that means there’s a lot of puss and blood, and you’ll need medicine or it’ll kill you faster than those things out there will.” She moves one of my stitches and I writhe beneath her, slamming my hand down on the countertop. The noise reverberates through the room. If anything is outside, they’ve heard us now.

“Fuck,” I breathe, unable to find words. “Don’t do that.”

“See, it’s infected.” 

“I’ll take my chances, thank you,” I bite, yanking down the hem of my shirt again. The pain ebbs away slowly, but it’s still there, a constant reminder of my impending weakness. My agility weakens with every day.

“If you want to survive on a damn god complex, be my guest,” She spits into the corner. “But at least let to clean it.” She disappears into the damp corner of the room, barely visible from the lack of light, and appears a few moments later with a half-full bottle of distilled vodka in her hand.

I snort, and she’s not amused with my response. “You’re an alcoholic?”

“I’m cleaning the wound with alcohol, for god’s sake,” She says through gritted teeth, fussing with the bottom of my shirt again.

“Vodka? You can’t be serious,” I grab her wrists. “You’re going to put _vodka_ on my wound?”

“Should’ve saved that judgment for whoever the hell did your stitches, cowboy,” Jess purses her lips. She’d be pretty if it weren’t for her constant condemning stare. “Not me.”

Anger ripples through me. “Forgive us for not all being medical technicians,” I say with a toss of my hands. “The first thing I wanted to do after the contagion broke out was to go to medical school, but, well, fuck me, right?”

She snarls at me, white teeth standing out against her tan skin. “I hope this hurts.” She pulls up my shirt again, this time more forcefully, her other hand pressing up against my skin to make me lean back into the wall behind me. I obey, watching her twists the cap off the bottle with her teeth, spitting it back onto the ground in one swift motion. Her right hand keeps my hand in place while the other grips the neck of the bottle, her thumb over the opening. “Ready?”

“Not at all.”

I feel her fingers spread out the folds of my skin, her touch sending electric pulses through my body. It’s nearly unbearable, and this isn’t even the worse part. She releases her thumb off the tip of the bottle, the liquid pouring out over my body and seeping into the open parts of the suture. I convulse underneath her, my vision going spotty, and fear I might pass out. My throat rips open in pain, fingernails digging into my palm so tight that I draw blood.

I cry out to her, but she barely flinches at the sight of me. “All right, tiger, just give me a second to get some gauze. Hold on. Just—just hold up your shirt so it doesn’t get wet.”

I try my best not to shift. The vodka sparkles on my skin, slithering around like liquid glass, sharpening the edges of the wound by the second. My heart is in my throat by the time Jess reappears, hands fumbling around a thin roll of medical gauze. She rips off a piece with her teeth and begins to bandage me, still thrashing in pain from the alcohol soaking into my skin. She makes it around my torso twice before beginning to pat at my dressings, my breathing starting to slow underneath her touch.  She slaps two long pieces of duct tape along the sides, securing the gauze in place, and pulls my shirt down over it once more.

“That should do.”

I stretch out over the length of the countertop, each subtle movement like daggers in the side. My head fits into the remnants of an old sink. “Thanks,” I manage, my body quivering with sweat.

“No problem.”

I take a moment to find my breath. It comes back natural as the pain begins to subside into a bearable numbness. “What about you?” I say through short, uneven breaths. “Do you have a family?”

I don’t miss the flicker of sadness etched across her face, disappearing with a blink of an eye. Her hands fall back down by her chest. She takes a heavy swig from the handle, letting it burn at the back of her throat. “I used to.”

My eyelids feel heavy. It’s been awhile since I’ve slept. “You don’t need to explain,” I say, gesturing with my hand.

“I watched my mother turn right in front of me,” she says, her eyes hardening. She looks through me, at the wall, already lost in a memory I can’t see. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything scarier in my entire life. The stuff of nightmares.”

I try to stop her, but she launches ahead of me, her eyes burning into the spot on the wall.

“She was bleedin’—and I mean, really bleedin’ and I thought she was just gonna bleed out right there in our foyer. I stayed with her that night, even boarded up all the windows in the room. I tried stayin’ up with daddy’s shotgun to protect her. But I fell asleep,” Her voice catches. “I woke up and she was on top of me, screamin’ and wailin’ and pleadin’ with me to just shoot her before it took over her soul.”

I don’t want to, but I imagine it. Jessalyn, huddled up in the corner of another forgotten room, dirty-blonde hair sticking to her cheeks, watching her mother crumble right in front of her, begging for death.

She looks like she’s about to cry, but she clutches her hands into fists, drawing upon what little strength she has left in her tiny body. I don’t have the energy to stop her. I feel numb from top to bottom. Her voice keeps me awake. “It was too late. She starts convulsin’, foamin’ at the mouth, wiggling around on the ground and just screaming as loud as she could. I won’t ever forget that noise. That horrible wailin’ noise. She was in so much pain.”

I find my voice. “It’s not your fault.”

Her left hand crosses over to fidget with her right one, fingers dancing around one another before she breaks the silence again. “My mother and I, we—we didn’t see eye to eye on very much. I tried apologizin’ before it took her. Really, I did.” She’s not talking to me anymore, but to herself; arguing with her own morality, combing over the situation a million times with the same outcome, trying to extract some sort of resolution, some sort of message, to let her know her mother didn’t die in vain. “But that _thing_ , it wasn’t my mother anymore. She had blisters all over her face and black eyes, like starin’ into darkness. She stopped wiggling for a moment before she lunged at me, and—”

Despite the pain, I sit up, feeling my body resist. “Jess, stop. Don’t.”

She clears her throat, bringing her back to me and the little room of dust. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it.” She shakes her head as if ridding herself from the memory, though it clings to her like wet clothing. “I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t kill my own mother. Someone else did it before I got the chance to say goodbye.”

Anger travels the length of her build, making her shake and ball her hands into fists.  “Got blood all over me, all over the floor, all over my thoughts.”

“Whoever it was,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “They did it to protect you, to keep you safe. I’m sure they—”

Jess’ body twists around to face me, her face flushing white. “He knew, all right,” She spits, venom dripping from her lips. “He’s my cousin. _Her_ cousin. Family. And he murdered her right in front of me.”

I ignore her anger, distracting myself with my throbbing side muscles. “It wasn’t your mother anymore.”

The muscles in her cheek tense. “How could you kill someone you knew, someone you loved, someone you grew up with?” Her voice drops a decibel, barely audible even with a mere foot separating us. “How could you just shoot someone without a second thought?”

“It was either you or… or the thing.”

“That was years ago,” she whispers, exposing the cracks in her demeanor. She’s not scared of me, but she’s scared of this world, what it does to people you love and people you hate. She plays with the ends of her hair, finding solace in the repeating patterns of her braid. “I still haven’t gotten over it.”

“I don’t think I would either.”

For a fraction of a second, Jess’ eyes meet mind. She pleads with me, thanking me with nothing but a glance, sewing up her emotional wounds like she’d attempted to soothe mine. The cracks in her mask disappear and her face hardens again, all business, much like when we’d first met, minutes ago. The time for her vulnerability has passed.

“So, this person you’re trying to find.” She straddles a chair positioned against the opposing wall, facing me fully. It’s a statement, but she’s questioning me.

“Brother,” I respond, studying the patterns of the ceiling. Mold is ugly, but it makes beautiful holes of decay, almost like a piece of abstract art.

“Younger or older?”

“He’s younger, but only by a year,” I say, counting the holes in the ceiling to keep from thinking about Joe. The burning in my side has begun to alleviate, so I readjust myself along the structuring of the countertop, leaning against my healthy side. “He can take care of himself.”

Her eyebrows shoot up to meet her hairline. “What happened?”

I grimace. I knew the story well, but no part of me wanted to recount that horrific day, even for the sake of reciprocity. Jess had opened up and she expected me to do the same. We are survivors, after all. Telling war stories is almost part of the job. “My family got moved to Quarantine, much like everyone else,” I say, feeling the weight of my words slam against my chest. Like Jess, I’d never brought my stories to life like this. “One of the soldiers wouldn’t accept one of our ration cards. He thought it was faked or forged, I don’t know. We hadn’t eaten in a few days, and Joe snapped. The guards took him somewhere.”

Jess is toying with a shard of glass now, twirling it in between her bony fingers. “Fuck the government for thinkin’ they know what’s best for us.”

My gaze falls down to the musty ground again, back to the unrecognizable bits of paper with water-stained photos, the ink leaking down onto the nearby lettering. “They took him somewhere. I tried to find him, one night after curfew, but the guards caught me. I managed to get away, but—”

Her eyes nearly bulge out of her face. “You got _away_? How is that possible?”

“I’d studied their patterns. Shift changes. That sort of thing,” I exhale a heavy breath, watching her face shift in and out of confusion. “There were only a few of them on duty that time of night. I managed to get by.”

She waves her hands in front of her face. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You can’t expect me to believe that you got out of the hands of fully-trained guards with assault rifles. You got superpowers or something?”

“Let’s just say I might have a little training myself.”

“Military?” She grips the edges of the rusty chair.

My brow furrows. I shouldn’t be telling her this. I shouldn’t be telling her any of this. But my lips are moving before I can think about what to say. “No. My father used to own an organization in conjunction with the FBI. It basically allowed teenagers to practice field work, fight crime, all around America. My brother and I… we were about to inherit the entire thing.”

She laughs outright. “I don’t believe you.”

“Then don’t,” I say, my voice sounding harsh and bitter. She takes no offense, only staring with curious eyes. I dig through my pockets, finding my now-dirty badge from the Network, my last name engraved along the curve of the bottom edge. She takes it from me, studying the metal.

“Hardy,” She says, her eyes flitting to me for a moment. “The Network. That’s what it’s called? How come I never heard of it?”

I try to remember what the building looks like, but my memory fails me. I haven’t been there in ages, and I’m certain it’s nothing more but a giant pile of bricks, raided of all its weapons, gadgets, and plethora of information. Not that any of their intel meant anything to the world anymore. Everyone was too busy trying to stay alive. “My brother and I were senior field agents. It’s normally kept quiet. Right before things went under, I met the Director of Special Operations for the FBI. We were working closely with them, but he was about to make my father an offer to endorse the organization and allow agents to work exclusively for the government on classified assignments.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is that you’re a spy,” She retorts, tossing my badge back to me. I’m feeble, but find the strength to catch it. It’s the one thing the soldiers didn’t strip from me back in Quarantine.

“I’m not a spy. I have field experience. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t see none.” She says, watching my face melt with annoyance. “Where’s your gun, then, agent?”

“Obviously I didn’t have much time to arrange for that when I made my grand escape,” I mutter. “Guards don’t let us have guns in Quarantine. I’m sure you know that.”

“Sounds t’me like you’re a pretty shitty agent.” She chides, letting a crooked smile envelope her angular face. In the light, she looks normal, save for the bruises and scars along her chin. In another universe, we’d probably grow to be friends.

“Oh yeah?” Heat races down my spine. “And what about you? Why are _you_ out here?”

“I got… contacts out here.” Her jaw tightens. She doesn’t want to tell me. Why should she?

“Contacts,” I repeat with air quotes, letting the word slap her. She responds with a roll of her eyes. “You mean Allegiance.”

“Things work a little differently in the south than they do up here, cowboy.”

“Yeah, right,” I say, already working at swinging my legs down from the counter, pulling myself up to sit straight. My eyes move across the room, looking for things to take, anything useful. I’ve already heard enough.

“Seems like that struck a chord,” she says, standing upright. If she’s annoyed, she doesn’t show it. Her face is a perfect blend of neutrality. “When my town got taken to Quarantine, there was a mishap of sorts during the transport. Those—those things ambushed the truck. I thought I was as good as dead. But Wade had his guys followin’ me, stalkin’ the truck for miles, waitin’ to get me the hell out of there. During the ruckus, he managed to pull me away and we took off.”

I can’t look at her. Whoever I thought she was is far gone. Any inkling of friendship dissipates into the damp air. She’s not someone I can trust. She notices my change immediately, crossing the room to stand between me and the only exit. A fair play. She knows I can’t—wouldn’t—fight her, not with a healing wound. A good punch to the side would incapacitate me, rendering me less than able to fight. “Where you think you’re going?”

“Not here,” I growl, shoving an arm passed her shoulders to unhook the bar covering the door. Jess acts quickly, breaking her fist hard against my elbow. I stagger back, gripping my arm, grateful the pain is elsewhere than my side for once.

“Somethin’ I said?” She breathes deep, nostrils flared.

“You’re Allegiance.”

“So?”

“So I want nothing to do with them,” I say, circling her. “Or you.”

“You think the government has better plans for us?” She scoffs, the noise low and guttural. It sounds unnatural coming from someone as petite as Jess. In the flickering of the light, I catch a sight of green in her eyes, narrowing at me with discontent.

“What did you do with all those people, Jess?” I lead with my healthy side, rounding her body with quick steps. She adjusts in turn, twisting on her heels to face me. “I bet I know. You left them all to die so you could save your own sorry ass.”

“We didn’t have a choice. There were too many of ‘em coming from every direction. We didn’t have enough ammunition to protect ourselves, let alone anyone else.” The air in the room, once stuffy, now pricks at my skin, the cold settling around the edge of my shoulders. “They were contagious, Frank.”

“And now there’s more of them.” My voice echoes off the walls of the tiny room, but it’s clear my message falls on deaf ears. Jess isn’t listening to me. She’s picking at her cuticles, distracting herself from what she doesn’t want to hear. “More of them to kill more mothers. Like yours.”

My mouth explodes from impact. I paw at the side of my face, hoping to feel the indents of Jess’ knuckles or a gash oozing blood, but I find neither. I spit down onto the cement, blood curling around my tongue. The coppery taste is all too familiar.

“Fuck you, asshole,” She breathes through gritted teeth, shaking out her right hand. “It’s life or death out there. I did what I had to do to survive.”

“You did what you had to do for yourself,” I say, licking my teeth. I spit again, this time in her direction, meaning every bit of it. She jumps back like it’s a bullet, hands rising preemptively for another fight. “But whatever helps you sleep at night, Jessalyn.”

My fingers caress the protective bar on the door, tossing it in the opposite direction to yank down on the door handle. I cast another look in her direction, long enough to see her fold her arms tightly across her chest, mouth set in a pinched line.

“Best of luck out there, agent,” she manages, her lips twitching. I’m no longer listening. I’m examining the outer room, shoulders rounded forward, ready to make a move when the timing is right. I don’t say another thing to the girl who’s just saved my life. Instead, I push the door open wider, take a step out, and disappear back into the shadows.


	2. two

_I’m buried underneath some_ tattered blankets, trying my hardest to succumb to sleep. My mind speeds on a racetrack, flying a mile a minute. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to sleep longer than four hours at a time. Even back in Quarantine, I’d wake up in a hot sweat, fingernails digging into my broken bed frame, hair damp against my forehead. I have nightmares, now more than ever. Living in a constant nightmare, a real-life horror movie, has made even sleep dare to be my friend.

It’s safer down here in the garage compared to the rest of the house. The only door connecting me to the main floor is barricaded, and the only way out is through the thick slab of metal in front of me. Once electric, the thing now weighs a ton, enough to keep anything, or anyone, from getting to me. Still, I stretch out my legs on the mattress, the one I’d hauled down from the second-floor bedroom. It’s positioned in the bed of an old Ford pickup. It doesn’t run—I’d tried that when I’d first stumbled onto the place. It’d been stripped for its battery and spark plug and nearly everything useful. The only thing that remains now is a skeleton of red metal. It’s better than sleeping on the floor.

I’ve been here for little over a month, but it still feels weird to call it home. The previous occupants no longer reside here. Best case scenario, they were safe in Quarantine. Under a heap of old blankets, I shiver at the idea of the opposite. Dead, somewhere, left to bleed, which living roaches stalking the planet. Even still, I can’t shake the feeling that in a matter of seconds the garage door is going to hum alive again, the family watching in shock as I tumble from the mattress and take off toward the woods.

I wiggle around, working the springs to get comfortable. Admittedly, my wound is feeling a lot better. I’d checked the bandages upon returning and found the wound looking less swollen in a matter of hours. Attempting to get comfortable is a chore these days, especially me, my long legs exceeding the length of the twin mattress and resting instead along a rusted portion of the truck. I curl up, pulling the blanket toward my face, my breath forming tiny clouds in the air from the cold. It’s been a brisk September, but I’m familiar with the cold by now, just like the bugs crawling along the back window.

I watch them for a long while, my eyes following them in circles as they dance around the perimeter of the glass, trying to discern any sort of noticeable patterns in their movements. I can feel the lull of sleep tickling at my toes and my body relaxes, watching the bugs make their normal rounds around the window, some trickling down to walk the length of the truck around me. It used to make me uneasy to think of sharing a bed with insects. Now, my worries are elsewhere.

For a moment, I wonder if they know what’s happening. They’re so tiny and insignificant, but living still. I lie there for quite some time considering the possibility that they know about the contagion, the destruction ravaging across the world. They’re bugs, after all. How much can they know about the way the world works? They only see a fraction of it their entire lives, anyway, and it only makes sense that they’re unaware of the horrors lurking outside the safety of the garage door.

By the time I’ve formed a reasonable hypothesis about the mannerisms and thinking patterns of insects, my eyes close and my body becomes still. Sleep welcomes me again, an old friend. 

* * *

 

When I wake, I can hear them.

I remain still in my cocoon of blankets, the warmth beginning to suffocate. My hands grip against the sides of the drunk, dark eyes flitting around the room. _I’m safe_ , I say to myself. _They’re outside the door_. There was practically nothing in the house left when I’d found it, save for some old clothes two sizes too big, a stained mattress, and kitchen utensils I’d been trying to craft into some sort of weapon.

I reach around to grab the makeshift shiv atop the back-left tire made of a few butter knives, a fork, and a pair of broken scissors bound together with some old twine. I’d tried to sharpen the edges with a rock, but it only made the metal rough and jagged. Still, it’s better than nothing.

Working my way to the bottom half of the truck, I grip the shiv in my hand tight and slide off the truck, my feet hitting the ground without a noise. I maneuver to the side of the garage, positioning myself behind some shelving units, and try to keep still. It’s largely impossible any infected could get inside, but I’m not taking any chances. I have no idea what’s out there, waiting for me, so I stay put, my hands clammy against the handle of the shiv. I watch the crack beneath the garage door. Moonlight spills in unevenly, illuminating the room just enough to see by, until the right corner becomes dark.

I hold my breath.

The sound is clearer now. It’s a wailing nose, like the one Jess had described to him a day ago. The little shadow doesn’t move at first, still blocking the light, but then it begins to move toward him, the scream rattling my eardrums. I can hear my heartbeat in my throat again, much like I could when I was trapped behind the bookshelf, awaiting death. The shadow grows still, the noise dying in its throat. The shadow wobbles in place. I watch its movement, being especially careful not to breathe too loud.

After some time, I conclude that it’s gone dormant. With shaky legs, I stand again, my hand gripped on the top of the shelving unit to steady myself. Once fully upright, I shift toward the back of the room, moving my feet around the varied debris scattered on the ground. I keep one eye on the shadow. It doesn’t move.

I nearly jump three feet into the air at the sound of the noise again, splitting through the silence like a broken siren. It’s high-pitched and garbled, more developed than the one I’d heard earlier, and it’s coming from a place farther away than the garage door. My head pounds with each shriek. The infected from earlier regains consciousness again, chiming in to the already deafening noise with its own distinct whine. _There are two_ , I note.

Panicked, I back up, a bead of sweat rolling down my spine. A huge bang reverberates off the walls. The things outside are clawing at the garaged door, throwing their bodies against the metal, fighting to get inside and devour me. Each bang sounds like a gunshot, and for a moment, I’m not sure if the metal will hold. A wormy hand stretches underneath the door, dotted with big, ugly blisters. It’s no use. I’ve rigged the door to open on my command with a series of hooks and levers. But my contraption is amateur. If more come, I won’t stand a chance.

I’m frozen in my spot. The shiv falls from my grasps and clambers down to the cement, but the noise is drowned out by the insufferable screaming outside. I drop down to my knees, fighting a splitting pain in my left ear. Shattered eardrum, no doubt. The infected outside continue to throw themselves into the door, creating dents that jut out toward me.

_I’m safe_ , I repeat, moving down onto my hands and knees. I push myself up against the exhaust pipe of the truck, fingers finding their way back to my face. My cheek is coated in warm, sticky blood.

The screeches begin to fade, turning to a choking sound as the infected begin to relax again, unable to smell my body concealed inside a mask of rust and oil. I remain still, focusing on the piping outlining the wall in front of me to direct my attention anywhere from the noises outside. I wipe blood on my stained jeans, using the hem of my shirt to clean up the side of my face.

The silence comforts me as the pounding against the door comes to a halt. For a moment, I relax again, my shoulders dropping down as I find my breath. This time, the noises greet me again only faraway, and another sound has joined ranks.

Amid the croaking and wailing, I can barely hear it, but once I do, it’s unmistakable. My heart falls into my stomach. It’s a girl. She’s human. Alive.

I scramble to the top of the truck, ignoring the seething pain spreading through my torso, my neck craned over boards to see out of the sliver of a window. For a moment, all my eyes can see is asphalt. I lift my gaze, searching for the source of the noise until I see her on the side of the road.

There’s two infected atop a small girl no older than fifteen. She’s wriggling underneath their force, kicking out her legs in a frantic attempt to fight them off, tiny frame bent awkwardly over the curb. Her head tips upward to avoid their jarred teeth. The one flanked on her right looks more severe than the other, its head dominated by thick, yellowish blisters and pale, cracked skin. The other, on her right, moves slower, looking more human than its counterpart, with dark beady eyes and a heavyset build.

They circle her, toying with their prey, their heads whipping around so violently I’m certain they’ll split off with every jerk. Terrified, the girl backs up, her heels kicking at the dead grass, trying to find purchase in the dirt. Her escape attempt only carries her a small distance before the infected launch at her again, tearing through her legs, pinning her down as she trashes beneath them.

The bigger one lays flat, using its weight to incapacitate her as the other struggles to grip at her arm, baring thin, razor-sharp teeth. She prevails, jerking her arm away just in time, rolling back onto her side. I can feel the color drain from my face watching her grapple with death. It wouldn’t be easy, but I can take out both. I can save her. I can.

I can’t. An ugly part of me burns. What good would happen if I was bitten too?

My eyes try to find the shiv on the ground but I can’t peel my gaze from the scene in front of me, watching the poor girl convulse under their weight, watching the infected snap at her with blackened mouths and empty mouths. She fights them for a long time, pushing and scrambling to get out of their grasp, but the infected are unrelenting, and I can see it in her eyes that she’s tired. Her screams, paired with their unstoppable wailing, is unbearable. My ear begins to bleed again, but I hardly notice it. My hands are already working at the ropes clawing the garage door shut.

My eyes don’t leave the girl as I fight against the endless series of knots and folds. I’d spent nearly an hour creating this extra barrier of protection, yet here I am tearing it apart in a matter of seconds. Finally, it gives way, falling into a heap onto the ground, the garage door moving up slightly, free from the added weight.

Then, she gets bitten.

I watch the world in slow motion. On top of her, the infected jerks its head around before pushing passed her tiny hands and sinking its teeth deep into the folds of her neck, ravaging around like a predator, tearing soft skin around tendons. The girl continues to scream, but the noise sounds watery. Her arms and legs squirm underneath the thing until gunshots rip through the air. Both infected blow back from the impact, landing in a pool of blood.

The street looks like a massacre. There’s blood everywhere, covering the majority of the street and sidewalk, and the infected look like roadkill, their bodies slumped awkwardly against the asphalt. To anyone else, it’d look like a horror scene. To me, it is.

I stay still for a long while, unable to find my footing, watching the blood expand around the girl’s tiny body, watching her convulse and seize. I’ve never seen anyone transition before. Not even Jessalyn’s stories can prepare me for what’s about to happen. The smell of blood is overpowering, wafting through the cracks of the garage door. If I had anything in my stomach, I’d probably lose it all over my shoes.

The girl manages to sit up only to vomit, her face devoid of color, chest heaving, neck painted in red. She falls to the ground again, her fingers twisted, continuing to spit as she convulses.

In the distance, I can see the silhouettes of three people growing near. The first is an older man with a scruffy beard, face masked by the brim of a cowboy hat. He grips at a shotgun, the barrel sawed off. He’s joined by two others, a severe-looking woman with dark eyes and a younger guy with a square jaw dusted with a five o’clock shadow.

The three of them surround the girl as she convulses, watching her episode continue for a little while before the older one pulls on his shotgun again, positioning the barrel at her forehead. She grips at it, smearing blood on metal, coughing only to vomit again. She begins to foam at the mouth. The older guy cocks the gun.

I don’t know when I pulled open the garage door. My feet catch the asphalt and I pummel toward them, stopping short only when the woman pulls out a 9mm pistol and points it between my eyes. The older man doesn’t move at first, shaking the gun free from the girl’s grasp, finally turning on his thick-heeled boots to face me. He works a toothpick in his mouth.

“Who are you?” The woman demands, her upper lip curling into a snarl.

“Don’t shoot her,” I plead to the older man. He’s the one who calls the shots around here. I can tell by the way he pats the woman’s hands, ushering back into line with the other man, who says nothing. “Please. You can’t.”

If he’s studying me, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he pushes the shotgun into my stomach, flipping the toothpick from one end of his mouth to the other. He chuckles, but the noise is low, almost like a growl. “Y’got another suggestion, boy?”

I can’t think straight. The girl writhes in pain, foam dripping from the sides of her mouth. I don’t know how long a full transition takes, but it has to be soon. “You can’t—”

The woman steps forward again. “We can’t shoot her? You want to leave her here to become one of those—one of those _things_?” She spits out the word, pointing with her chin to the heap of bone and blood lying inches away from the girl. Their eyes are dead, but the sight still makes my skin crawl.

“It’s for her own good, son,” The man says, using the barrel of the shotgun to prod at my cheek, making me look at him. His face tells stories through carved wrinkles. I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to know any of them. “Let her die with some damn dignity.”

My hands begin to shake. Before I can answer him, I’m falling backward onto the ground, my pant leg submerged in a puddle of blood. The woman beneath me has her arms clasped around my neck. I struggle against her grip, but she doesn’t give. She’s stronger than she looks. I push against her elbow, trying to locate weak spots, but she doesn’t give me time to react. I push again, harder this time, managing to weaken her just enough to spring from her grasp. The old man already has the barrel at the girl’s forehead. She’s weak, twitching, eyes rolling in the back of her head. I can’t find words to speak. The sound of the gun ripples through the quiet suburbia, and the girl’s body goes limp.

I can’t explain the feeling rushing into the pit of my stomach but I yell, my fist coming down on the man’s jaw, making contact before my knees give out from under me again. I land on the ground, my elbow tearing against some pebbles, half-covered in blood. The man wiggles his jaw before cocking the gun at me.

“You really didn’t want to do that, boy,” he snaps, the barrel pushing up against my left cheek. It’s still hot from his last kill, the metal almost burning through my face. I still, my side exploding with pain. I breathe through clenched teeth, eyes fixated on the man’s face. He has stiches running from his temple down to his jawline and puffy, red eyes that seem to droop on the other corners, following the outline of his round face. He even looks well-fed, belly ballooning out from a ripped jacket. Even his hands tell a story; they are large and dotted with callouses, rings of his fingernails cracked and bleeding and coated in gun powder.

“Just take him in,” The woman says. “He can work on the Trench.”  

I don’t know what they’re talking about, but the man pulls back on his gun, letting it rest instead on his knee. “You’re not taking me anywhere,” I say, sizing them all up. I’ve been interrogated before. I know how this works. I’m an agent. I can’t be broken.

The young guy, almost forgotten in the back, laughs outright. “I don’t think you really have a choice in the matter, my dude.”

His brazen tone catches me off guard. One look at the woman and I realize I’m not alone in this thought. She rolls her eyes at him while I stand. I’m taller than all of them, but it’s no matter. One can’t fight three. They’re all armed.

“Believe me, I do,” I swallow hard.

The younger guy smiles, running a hand across his stubble. “I like you.” He nods toward the others. “I like him. We should keep him around. He’s got kind of an attitude, but y’know, I like it.”

“I don’t,” The older man grumbles. His voice is hoarse. “Ain’t got time for wise asses that want to pretend to be Superman.”

“I’m not trying to be some sort of superhero, old man,” I spit, wiping my hands on my jeans. I move passed him, making sure my shoulder smacks into his as I cross his path. I don’t care about the pain invading my body. I grow numb to that over time. I don’t have time to make friends. “Just leave me the fuck alone.”

I continue to walk back in the direction of the house, my eyes focused on the truck. I can hear them whispering behind me, deliberating my fate, but I don’t care much for their discussion. I’m not going anywhere with them. I have to find Joe. I have to find him. I have to. I must.

My thoughts are cut short by the sound of approaching footsteps. I can hear a sickening crack, wood against bone, as the shotgun comes down on the back of my skull, and then the world squeezes shut. 


	3. three

_My eyes open slowly_.

The back of my head is aflame with pain, joining ranks with the other bruises and scars that plague my body. My body, my own skin, hates me. Hates what I’ve done to it, hates me for choosing the alternative when there were warm meals and a safe bed back at Quarantine. I’m far from it now, farther away from my brother, and my heart aches. I yearn for one of Joe’s bad jokes. I can almost see him, his voice carrying in the breeze, a mess of blonde curls falling short of his eyes. Mom’s eyes.

I don’t know where I am. My arms are tied behind me with scratchy rope, digging into the thin skin of my wrists. Even my legs are bound together. Trying to fight against the restraints is a fruitless task, so instead I focus on memorizing the aspects of the room. It’s large, extending a couple dozen feet in each direction. Like Jessalyn’s tiny hideaway, this room is covered in dust and the smell of mold seems to waft from the floorboards. The walls stretch up into more darkness, dotted with tiny windows that let in tiny streams of light. As I move, I can see sawdust particles float through the air.

_This must be some kind of workshop_ , I muse, trying to discern the monsters of machinery behind me. They blend with the dark corners of the room, looking unused and rusted at best. Whatever this place used to be, it’s no longer in working condition. I glance down over my shoulder to the knot at my wrist. It’s a hunter’s bend. I’ve never seen one before, nor do I know how to release myself, and it’s strategically tied around the base of my hands to ensure I have no extra room to wiggle myself free.

I think about yelling. Maybe they forgot about me. Maybe they’re getting ready to set the building on fire. I don’t have long to think about it. The door to my left flings open, spilling sunlight into the room like liquid gold. I can hear distant chatter outside, even the sound of children playing, but before I can crane my neck to get a closer look, a silhouette cuts through the light like a knife.

“You’re awake,” a voice says. “Rad.”

I recognize him before he dips forward. It’s the guy from the street, the younger one, who liked me. He flips out a pocket knife from his back pocket, quickly working at my bonds. “Relax, you’re safe here.” He studies my face. “Jeez, Ollie sure did a number on you, man.”

“I’ll be sure to thank him personally,” I snap, rotating my wrists, the friction burns looking more like brands by the second. I rub at them like an annoying itch. My eyes, adjusting to the new light, study the man’s features. He’s got an angular face with big, mud-brown eyes and prickly black stubble matching his glossy hair, slicked back behind his ears. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Nick,” he says, offering a smile. I don’t return the favor. I’m already on my feet, scouring the room for an escape route. “I’m just your average activist plotting my secret vendetta against the all-knowing government.”

Bitterness crawls up my throat but I swallow it. “Great.”

“Okay, hey, I can sense your disrespect already, man. Just give me a chance. I just saved from hours of extreme discomfort. Not to mention, I could get my ass kicked for helping you. Doesn’t that warrant anything?”

I look back down to the burns on my wrists. “I suppose.”

“My bad about Ollie and Zoe,” Nick says, brushing a bit of sawdust from his coat. “They’re a little intense, even for me.”

My mind works faster than my mouth, putting together the available pieces in my brain. Things begin to clear. “Allegiance, right?” I mutter, kicking at an old box. It nearly deteriorates at my touch.

Nick nods, solidifying the train of thought in my head. “I mean, it’s not official headquarters or anything, but it’s pretty legit,” He pulls something from his jacket. It’s a new shirt. Glancing down at my own, I realize my own need. My old shirt is covered in blood and dirt, ripped at the sleeves and tearing from the seams at the side. I take it from him, not bothering to mumble a thank-you. “What’s the matter? You got personal beef with our code of ethics?”

“Lack thereof, maybe,” I snort, pulling off the crumbling fabric off my body. I’m thinner now, my muscles hard from months of strain. I don’t miss Nick peer at my bandage. It’s red now, almost if the gauze had been colored that way originally. For once, it doesn’t burn. It’s a perpetual numbness I’ve grown to ignore. “Why did you bring me here, Nick?”

Nick’s eyes fall. “I don’t know man. Really, I don’t,” He doesn’t flinch when I toss my bloody shirt onto the ground, pulling the new one over my wide shoulders. It’s a little big, but it’ll do. “You—you passed out, sort of rolled on the pavement, and I was told to bring you here and tie you up.”

He’s about a head shorter than me with swollen elbows and lanky arms. I don’t bother to ask how he got me here. I don’t care. “You’re not doing a very good job.”

“Yeah, well, the others seem to think you’re dangerous.”

“And you?”

 He smiles again. “I think you’re just misunderstood, man,” He claps a hand down on my shoulder, drawing me close so I can smell the stink of his breath. I pull away instinctively. “All right, all right, it’s cool. I don’t expect to be best friends or nothing. Just don’t write us off yet. We’re doing some great stuff here.”

“Like killing teenage girls?” I snap, my mind swimming with thoughts of the girl in the street, convulsing from contagion. “I’m not interested, _man_.”

The last part stings. Part of me means for it to, the other half of me doesn’t. He’s been friendly to me, but I don’t trust him. I don’t trust the people he trusts. “Whoa, dude,” Nick says, stepping in front of me, pressing a hand to his chest. “That was definitely not my call. I’m all for dramatic statements—it’s practically in my DNA—but murder isn’t on my agenda.”

“You support people who believe so.”

“Hey, it’s survive or be survived, man. I’m not ready to die.”

“Neither was she.”

My words linger in the air, drafting a cold silence that chills me to the bone. The weight of the past few days falls on me. I’m hungry, thirty, tired, irritated… the list grows longer with every passing thought. Every second I spend here is another tick against Joe’s clock. I don’t have time to have idle conversation with activists. I need to find my brother. “Can I just go?”

“Sorry, my man. Can’t let you do that.” Nick’s hands fall to his jeans. He’s got a handgun tucked in the folds of his jeans above his right-back pocket. I’m no idiot. I try to move, he shoots me. That’s how this game is going to play. “They’d kill me if they found out. For once, I’m not being metaphorical.”

I stoop down to tug at my shoelaces, feeling a pinch at my side as my wound contracts. I need to redress my bandages, but I doubt anyone here will spare medical supplies, especially now. “What’s his story? That Ollie guy.”

Nick rubs the back of his neck. “He’s from Canada, I think. Used to run some ranch for some money-hungry conservative,” he says. “He’s got a daughter, too. Wild little thing, just like him. She’s about ten.”

_A daughter?_ “Out here?”

“Yeah. He probably should’ve stayed up there in Alberta, but of course, the government flanked upwards and pushed all the residents into Quarantine. Said it was for ‘better protection’.”

“You don’t buy it?”

“Of course I don’t buy it. Open your eyes, dude. They’re using this as an opportunity to seize power against the common man. I bet they’ve been planning this for months. Maybe even years.” He shakes his head. “You don’t honestly believe there was just a sudden outbreak, do you? That all of a sudden this virus just ‘got out’?”

I shrug. I’d never thought much about the outbreak of the contagion, just that it happened and we were left to suffer the consequences. “I don’t think the government would purposefully take out nearly half of the population.”

“They’ve done it before, man. What about the Holocaust?”

I scan the length of the room again to avoid Nick’s pleading eyes. I pause to focus on the box on his left. It’s drowned in piles of old newspapers, most of which are outdated and soggy from the dampness in the room. “Hitler was just one man.”

Nick bites the side of his lip. “I don’t know. All I know is that something doesn’t add up here. They got us mangling around in quarantine zones, locked away from the outside world, fighting for food, scraps, basic necessities like we’re some kind of human zoo while they get to watch.” He scowls. “At least we’re _doing_ something about it. At least w’ere not letting them win.”

“They’re in every bit of danger as we are,” I say, pointing to a picture on one of the faded newspapers. It’s a line of bodies, all shrouded underneath a tarp. “Those things out there… they’re real.”

We both fall silent. I study the newspaper clipping, rotating my head to read the headline.

_Virus Spreads to Midwestern Region: All Residents Urged to Take Shelter!_

After my high-school graduation, I wandered home to find Joe munching on a sandwich in our kitchen. With all the threats of a contagion fluttering around Bayport, it was a miracle we even _had_ a graduation ceremony, let alone numbers to attend it. A lot of my graduating class had moved on with their families in attempt to flee the country—and most of them were successful. However, my parents weren’t ones to succumb to the mass panic, and Dad was constantly receiving intel at work about the virus. They thought me and my brother would be safe.

Of course, living in the outskirts of New York had its downfalls, and before Joe could even finish the remnants of his sandwich, three busty soldiers came pummeling through the front row, all stoic in ironclad uniforms, gas masks obtruding their unremarkable faces. They’d grabbed my brother by the wrist and pushed him outside to sprawl out on the grass and then went upstairs to find my mother folding laundry.

In thirty minutes, they had the three of us outside on the lawn, faces pushed into the dirt. I remember one of them pressing a weird machine to the nape of my neck, then loading us into a cramped cart with bulletproof walls, filled with other families from our neighborhood. I hadn’t been back to my childhood home since. They fetched Dad at work pouring over notes. He joined us in Quarantine a day later, looking like a ghost.

“You okay?” Nick is saying, drawing me out from the memory.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” I lie.

Behind them, the door flies open again. Still clinging to the memory, I expect to see more soldiers in dark uniforms. Instead, Ollie rounds one of the wooden pillars, still clutching his shotgun, permanently stained with blood and rust. He doesn’t seem to mind. “Good,” he growls, the noise coming from his belly. “He’s awake.”

I set my jaw. “I’m not here to cause problems.”

“You already did, boy.” Ollie spits.

I’m surprised to hear Nick’s voice floating through the tension. “He’s never seen anything like that in his life, dude,” He interjects, taking a cautious step back from Ollie and his gun. “You point-blank shot a girl right in front of him. He acted on instinct. I don’t think we should—”

Ollie juts the shotgun in Nick’s direction, and he nearly jumps into my open arms. His hand clutches the fold of my shirt. He’s a coward, but an honest one. He’s used to jumping into the jaws of greedy corporations, not staring down the barrel of a gun. “Damn, son,” Ollie yells. “What did I tell you about gettin’ so damn sentimental?”

Nick’s hands fly up in defense. “Look, I didn’t mean—”

“Dad?”

All three of us stop short at the noise. In a flash, Ollie hides the shotgun behind his back, turning to face the doorway. There’s a young girl leaning against the wood, red hair peeking out of the hood of her jacket. Her cheeks are plum and reddened from the autumn chill. She looks at her dad with confusion, eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Ollie’s demeanor changes in front of me. His guttural voice drops to something thinner, sweeter, paternal. “Freddie, honey, I told you to say with Zoe until I got back.”

Freddie picks at the splinters in the woodwork. “She’s no fun,” She whines. “She sat there sharpenin’ her stick, over and over, even though it was already as sharp as a pin needle. Wouldn’t even let me help.”

Ollie heaves a great sigh. He turns to Nick and hands him the shotgun, shooting a loaded glance in my direction before addressing his daughter again. “Freddie, daddy’s workin’. It’s almost dinner time. You go back down and find Zoe and I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

Tears bite at her eyes, but she nods.

“You got your knife?” He asks her, and she pulls out a stubby, rusted pocket knife from the pocket, turning it over in her small hands. He closes her hands over the rusted metal and pushes it back down towards her, and she shoves the weapon back into her tiny pockets. My heart leaps from my throat. The idea of kids wielding tiny weapons gives me no solace. Ollie chuckles. “Good. You ‘member what I told you ‘bout when to use it?”

“If it clicks, it sticks.”

“’Atta girl,” he says, planting a kiss on the top of her forehead. She lingers for a moment before disappearing. Outside, the sound of voices increases. We’re in some sort of camp. Nick wasn’t lying.

Turning around, Ollie’s face becomes hard again. He rips the shotgun out of Nick’s grasp. Pointing it upward at my face, he growls, “Y’got ten seconds to make a decision. Option one you come with me and we make a little deal. Option two, y’get buried underneath the mulch to make the vegetables grow. Your choice.”

I use my chin to gesture at the door. “You have a daughter,” I say, preying on his weak spots. Ollie is a hard man. He doesn’t budge. “She must mean a lot to you.”

He takes several steps towards me until the barrel of the shotgun is pushed against my stomach, right against the border of my wound. I try not to wince, but my muscles betray me, tensing at his touch. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about gettin’ sentimental?” He spits at the ground again, to the space between my feet. “Five seconds.”

Between Ollie and Nick, there’s no way out. Even if I could manage to get passed them, I’d be running through unknown territory full of more people with guns, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. I swallow. “Let’s make a deal.” 

* * *

 

About fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting cross-legged in a cabin along the edge of their tiny property. I’m told this branch of Allegiance took over a farmland with several barns for animals and lots of open land, which was good for protection services because the guards could see what was coming from the woods. Adjacent to the cabin is a long, wired fence that travels the length of the land. It used to keep the animals from getting out. Now it keeps anything from getting in.

“So, about this deal,” I say, breaking the silence. Nick hands me a can of lukewarm beans heated over the small fire in the middle of the room.

On the walk over here, the woman they call Zoe joined us, accompanied by Freddie, Ollie’s daughter, who tagged at her father’s heels. Now, Freddie sits next to the fire, chewing her tasteless beans, watching the colors from the fire dance around the room.

Zoe clears her throat. She doesn’t like me. “This is ridiculous,” She rolls her eyes. “Why would we trust him?”

“He’s chill,” Nick says in my defense, offering me a sad smile. “He’s not like the others. And he’s by himself.”

“So he says.”

“It’s just me,” I say. I take a moment to swirl a mouthful of beans over my tongue, swallowing them before they turn to mush. “My family and I got separated in Quarantine. I’m just trying to get back to them.” It’s not a total lie. Quarantine is where I last saw Joe. It would be a good place to start.

Zoe’s honey-gold eyes widen as she dips her head closer to the fire. Flames dance in her irises. “You’re trying to go _back_ to Quarantine? Why the hell would anyone want to do that?”

Seated farther away from the fire, Ollie’s eyes travel down Freddie’s small body. He nods at me. “Family.”

“My brother was taken by the guards,” I continue. “I don’t know where he is, but I’m trying to find him. My parents are safe—”

“He’s dead.” Zoe snaps.

Freddie’s head pops up at the word.

I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing out the remaining amount of doubt left in my mind. I tr hard to picture my laughing, sarcastic baby brother in some kind of holding cell in the heart of Quarantine, making fun of the soldiers and cracking lame jokes about the weather. I hold that image in my mind for a long time until Zoe clears her voice again.

“Let’s not,” Ollie growls, his shadow towering over him. His gaze falls on his daughter again who seems interested in the conversation.

“If the guards got to him, there’s no way he’s still alive. You’re looking at a lost cause, kid,” Zoe mutters, rubbing her hands over the fire.

The fire is warm and inviting, but I fight to stay awake. “I don’t think I need your passing judgement,” I set my jaw. “Anyway, it’s none of anyone’s business. Just tell me what I need to do so I can get the hell out of here.”

Ollie shifts to sit onto his backside, the fire morphing his figure into an ugly, dark monster. His skin glows in the crackling flames. If Freddie is scared, she doesn’t show it. She keeps close to her dad, nuzzling her tiny face into his broad chest. “A bunch of damn prowlers have staked out the old convenience store just down the street,” He spits at the logs, watching them sizzle. “We have a lot of women and children here. Not enough men. We need your help to raid the place.”

“Prowlers?”

“Piece-o’-shit cowards who gang up on small groups and take resources,” He explains. “A lot of the problems we have in camp are from them, an’ not even from the infected. They’re always tryin’ to find ways to steal our shit.”

“How many are there?” I press my fingers against my temple. I can’t even believe I’m even letting myself hear their stupid plan.

“Dunno,” Ollie stretches his legs out. From my angle, it looks like the fire is licking at his ankles. “Probably thirty or forty.”

I laugh outright, slapping my hand down on my thigh. “So, you want me to go down there, unarmed, and take out thirty to forty grown men?” How could they be serious?

“You’ll go with a few of the boys,” Ollie growls. “I ain’t sendin’ you in there alone. You’d be dog food in seconds.”

“You’re talking about, like, _mass murder_ here.”

Zoe laughs angrily, the noise sounding sharp. “We’ve been in this hellhole for three years, if not longer. If you haven’t killed anyone yet, you’re in for a _big_ fucking surprise.”

I’ve never killed anyone before. There were times, long ago, when I was on cases with Joe and wounded people—shot them in the leg, in the shoulder, in the knee—to keep them down long enough so they wouldn’t escape, but I’ve never actually _killed_ someone. I’d never watched the life drain from someone’s eyes, never seen a body grow cold from my doing. Zoe’s right. It’s been three years since the outbreak, and I’ve never even been close. Not even an infected. But I won’t tell her that.

“Just not in his moral code of ethics,” Nick says, scratching his stubble. “That’s okay, man. Sometimes, violence isn’t the answer.”

To my left, Zoe groans so loud I think she might wipe the fire out entirely. “You strapped yourself to a construction machine to stop the demolition of a theater,” She barks. “Don’t give me that activist shit, Nick. Not now.”

Ollie has had enough of their bickering, and puts a hand up before Nick can speak. “Listen, kid—”

“Don’t call me kid.”

“I didn’t say you had to kill anyone,” The corners of Ollie’s mouth twitch. “Makin’ a deal with them ain’t gonna come easy. They ain’t the talkin’ type.”

Frustration eats at my skin. “I’m running out of options,” I say. “They won’t listen and they won’t go down without a fight. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m sayin’ it won’t be easy, kid,” Ollie dumps a tiny pail of water onto the fire, watching it melt into smoke. “I suggest you heed that warning.”


	4. four

_I can already tell this_ is going to be an impossible feat. There’s two men standing outside the old convenience store and about fifteen more inside, all equipped with guns and explosives. I work my way along the brick wall adjacent to the doors, keeping my feet lifted on the asphalt, careful not to disturb the shards of glass and debris. Just like with the infected, any noise could seal my fate.

From where I’m standing, I’ve got a perfect view of the place, secluded just enough to remain unseen by the guards out front. I crouch down behind a gutted car with vines tangling through the windshield, taking cover there to toss over some ideas in my mind. The gun Ollie gave me back at camp digs into my calf. Behind me, five other guys from Allegiance creep up behind more car skeletons, ready to assist me when I make the first move.

The rusty doors scratch their way open. A tall, seedy looking man with dark, greasy hair appears in the sunlight, running a hand through his stubble before lighting a cigarette. He stands there for a moment, silent, before turning to the guards posted outside the doors. “Any action, Sanchez?”

“Nah,” the guard replies. He’s roughly a foot taller than me with big, broad shoulders and a neck as wide as my thigh. He pushes long locks of brown hair behind his ears. “It’s been pretty quiet, boss.”

The greasy man plucks the cigarette from his mouth, smoke twisting from his lips. He points at the guard. “Now that’s what I like t’hear.”

My stomach turns. I know that voice, but I can’t seem to figure out why. Even from behind the safety of the car, I can’t see the man’s face. But I’m certain I know that voice from somewhere.

“All righty, boys,” The man continues. My brain moves on overtime, trying to match the sound to a face. “It’s almost nighttime. I dunno what’s out there, but y’make sure it doesn’t come past these fucking doors. Capeesh?”

The two guards exchange loaded glances. “Yeah boss, we got it.”

I wait for the man to retreat back into the store before losing myself in my thoughts again. It would be easy to sprint across the remainder of the parking lot and take off through the woods, but Ollie made it clear he’d gut me if that happened, so I stay put. Besides, the resources inside will have some value to me for my journey back to Quarantine. I need the water. I need food. As if on cue, my stomach moans.

I peek through the shattered window the car again, making sure to remain invisible. The sun begins to sink behind the decrepit building, allowing me to disappear into the shadows. The two guards stay put, craning their necks to see into the darkness.

I need a distraction. Looking down, I find a bottle, half-broken, next to my foot. I grip the glass, careful not to cut myself, and chuck it in the opposite direction, away from the guards and their posts. It hits the neighboring gas station like a bomb, shattering into a million pieces, the sound reverberating through the empty parking lot. I motion towards the others, still standing behind me. This is our only chance to get inside.

The bigger guard flips his safety off his handgun and holds it close to his face, walking with his back facing the wall until he reaches the point where it ends. He squints towards the blackness, motioning with his other hand for his partner to follow. “C’mon, we gotta see what it is.”

The other guard, a small man who looks like a weasel, remains motionless. “No fucking way I’m going over there,” He fingers his shotgun. “It’s probably a cat or something. Get back over here.”

“Or it could be an infected,” The big one hisses, jerking his head in the direction of the noise. While they argue, I tiptoe across the asphalt to hide behind another car, this one closer to the doors. I can hear light scruffs as the others follow me, careful to keep their heads ducked. “Get the fuck _over_ here, Chen!” The big one yells, slapping the side of the concrete wall. The noise makes the other guy jump nearly two feet in the air.

Exasperated, the little one pumps his shotgun, joining his partner at the corner. “Jesus, are you trying to get us killed?”

I strain to see the through the double doors, but there’s only more darkness. The guards are getting antsy and I know this is my only shot. I gesture to the other guys, who nod in agreement, then I take slow slides toward the door, my footsteps light. The guards haven’t turned around yet, but I press my back against the wall, moving the left door open bit by bit to avoid being seen. Somewhere behind me, another bottle breaks in the distance. The guys are doing their best to keep the guards distracted, and for that, I’m thankful.

I manage to slide through the opening, dropping down to the floor so my cheek kisses the linoleum. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can make out a tangled mess of shopping carts in the corner. Some of them have been ripped apart for the metal while some remain untouched, the metal gleaming in the moonlight like teeth. To my left, there are a few shelving units stacked atop one another coated in a thick layer of dust. The whole room smells of bleach as if you could light a match and let the place burn.

Voices fade from the distance, and I crawl over to the shelving units, thankful for the lack of electricity. If the lights worked, I’d be exposed in a matter of a minute.

“We’re running out of shit, boss,”

My stomach turns as the same voice from earlier, the man with the cigarette, cuts through the silence. A pang of familiarity hits me in my gut. “We’ll cap this place off and move onto the next. Don’t worry, ol’ Tino’s got this one figured out, okay?”

_Oh._

“All right, boss,” replies the other voice. It’s shrill and whiny, but I think it’s coming from a man. “Whatever you say.”

Footsteps echo through the room. “Don’t look at me like that,” Tino snaps. I can’t see him yet, but I know he’s close. “I can’t have guys wining and dining over here. You just gotta trust me, all right, Andy?”

Before I can even think of my next move, I’m flying through the air by my shirt collar, my eyes burning from the bleach. I can’t see anything but the beam of a flashlight until I’m falling, this time colliding with the ground so hard my vision goes spotty. I claw at the ground, scrambling to pull myself upright, but then I hear the click of a pistol and my body grows still.

“Are my eyes deceiving me?” I blink away the fuzzy spots. Tino’s figure looms over me, shaking as he barks out a laugh. “Frankie, my boy.”

“You know this kid boss? How’s that possible?”

Tino’s upper lip curls. He looks a lot like a Rottweiler ready to tear apart someone’s face. “I know a lotta people in a lotta places, Andy,” he growls.

There’s another gangly man—Andy—sitting atop of an old register. He’s draped in big, oversized flannel shirts and has a mop of tawny curls and crooked teeth. He eyes me for a moment, grumbling under his breath, and then looks away towards the front door. Any moment, a tiny squad would burst through to my rescue. Unless Ollie told them to leave me to the vultures.

“Frankie,” Tino repeats, extending a hand to pull me up. He locks his arm around my waist. “Jesus, kid, y’look fuckin’ awful.”

“Same to you.”

He guffaws, the noise carrying through the room. “Where’s y’kid brother? Y’know, small, blond, irritating…?”

I want to lunge at him, but my feet are planted to the ground. I can take him down effortlessly, but his band of guys would devour me whole. There’s no use trying. “He’s not with me,” I say, clearing my throat. I hope my face looks strong, unintimidated, dangerous. I hope Tino learns his lesson.

“He’s not with you,” Tino nods, echoing my words. “Interesting, interesting. He lose his shit?”

My back muscles tense and Tino’s guys take a heavy step forward. How he managed to get all these men to back him up, I don’t know. He’s a couple inches shorter than me with yellow teeth and a bad attitude. He barely respects himself, let alone anyone else. But still, they flank his sides, forming a diamond pattern around us. “No, he’s safe. He’s with my family.”

“And you?” Tino uses a cigarette to point up and down my body. “Why aren’t you there with them?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” I lick my lips. “Sir.”

“Well, you’re right,” Tino walks among the old registers, his men staggering back to avoid being in his way. He’s nothing but a coward, and yet these men fear him worse than any infected. The master of charisma. I should’ve known. “It’s not my business, Frankie. But you know what is? You being here on my turf.”

 “Didn’t think the place was occupied.”

Tino snarls. “Don’t lie to me, son.”

I’m already working on a plan. Tino’s a man of charisma, but I’m a man of logic. He appreciates a good argument. I’ll give him one. “Thought people handled shortages like adults these days,” I gesture to the empty boxes and overturned shelves. “Especially someone who used to be a cop.”

Just like I expect, Tino relaxes. He thinks I’m a wise ass with a mouth, just like my brother, just like we were four years ago. I’m no threat to him. He’s wrong. “Things aren’t that easy anymore, kid. What’re you lookin’ for, exactly?”

“Supplies,” I keep my face neutral. “Just stuff to help me on my way back home.”

He rubs his stomach, bloated from alcohol. He’s no doubt licked the place dry. Even his eyes deceive him—red and swollen. Still, he keeps up the charade. He’s good at this. “I advise you choose the next set of responses carefully, kid. It might be the last coupla things you ever say in your life.”

“What would you like me to do, Tino?” I ask. The proverbial spotlight in the room shifts to him again, and he basks in it, rubbing a hand down his chin. Being the center of attention is his only goal, even in the middle of an apocalypse. Nothing’s changed.

“Me?” He throws up his hands. He’d probably win an award for this performance. “I don’t know, kid. What would you like old Balducci to do for you?”

“A deal,” I’m lying. Tino doesn’t make deals, and neither do I. But his men watch with bug eyes, waiting to see if their boss will give in to some punk kid’s request.

Tino laughs again, his whole body rumbling. “A deal?”

I talk fast, giving him little chance to think. “I need some stuff for me and a few of my friends,” I nod to the corner, where a bunch of boxes remained stacked and unopened. It’s the rest of Tino’s supply. “You help me out, I’ll help you out.”

“Cut off his ankles, boss,” Andy bites from the register, using a small knife to pick his teeth. “He’s a liar.”

Tino considers it for a moment before tilting the pistol in Andy’s direction. He shoots the end of the register so the money counter flies off into the wall with a sickening _pop_ , barely missing Andy’s head by a few inches. “I don’t you to be quiet, you insufferable little fuck,” Tino snarls, tucking the gun back into his jeans. Andy cowers back, the knife clambering to the ground and skidding underneath the next register. Tino turns back to me. “So, these friends of yours… they got names?”

“It’d be a little awkward if they didn’t.”

“Don’t do that, kid,” Tino says, lighting the edge of his stubby cigarette. The smoke curls by his ears. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

“Why do you care?”

“I care because I’m a gracious man, Frankie,” Tino begins to pace, puffing his cigarette with every change in direction. “I like to know who I’m helpin’ personally. You understand that?”

 “You just want to make sure they don’t double-cross you,” I say, keeping my eyes glued to his. Tino’s is nothing more than a snake waiting to strike. I won’t give him that chance. “Don’t lie to me either.”

It’s a power play, and Tino feeds off it. He’d like nothing more but to humiliate me in front of his entire crew, but I’m making him work for the chance. Thankfully, some of his boys have gotten bored from the argument. They retreat to their posts, flinging rifles over their shoulders. Good. “I need a name, kid. Just one, at least.”

“Ollie,” I spit. “There’s one.”

Tino stops pacing, his hand coming up to smooth back his oily black hair. He drops the cigarette to the floor, squishing it underneath his foot like a bug, then angles himself to face me fully. He wants to do the same to me. “What did you just fuckin’ say to me?”

“What?”

“Did you just say—” He puts a hand out in front of me, and I stagger back. “—what I think you just said?” His men have returned, tense, already popping bullets into the clips of their guns. Something is wrong. This isn’t part of the game.

From my peripherals, I see Andy leap off the counter, pushing passed two hefty men with handguns. “You mean Ollie Randall?”

Tino’s played a card I can’t match. He holds a hand I can’t beat. Somehow, he knows Ollie. My stomach rotates and my throat burns with anger, though I tell myself it’s from the bleach spiking the air. How could Ollie not tell me this? Did he know, or was he just setting me up for death?

“I don’t—”

Tino’s grip takes me by surprise. He cups my jaw, pulling me so close to him I can see the cuts on his face. Like Tino, they barely scrape the surface, amounting to more of an annoyance than a serious threat. “Oh, Christ, kid. You really have outdone yourself this time. Gettin’ wrapped up with that swine.”

He pushes my face back and I fall, my knees cracking against the floor. “I didn’t know. Tino, listen, I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me any of—”

“Spent a lot of time with the guy when the outbreak first fuckin’ hit. He didn’t tell you that? Didn’t tell you that he left ol’ Tino to bleed out in the middle of the street?” He kicks one of the registers. Dust penetrates the air. “No, I’ll bet he didn’t.”

“He didn’t, I swear,” I say, sweat gleaming on my forehead. Someone pushes a gun to the back of my neck. I’ve been in this situation too many time the past couple of days. “Please, you got to trust me.”

“Real fucking funny, kid. I don’t trust nobody.”

A bang reverberates off the walls, and for a moment, I think I’m dead. I open my eyes and find Tino and his men in chaos, and I’m still on the floor on my knees right in the middle of it. Ollie’s men must have come to rescue me. Turning to look over my left shoulder, I can see a squad of military soldiers burst through the front door, assault rifles clutched tight to their chest. They’re government, judging by the look of their uniforms, and they’re not here to take us to Quarantine. Bullets ring through the air, some from Tino’s men, some from the soldiers. I fight to get to my feet, pushing passed Tino’s frozen body and making my way towards the back of the store, scanning the walls for the emergency exit.

Behind me, the gunfire continues. My side burns in agony as I round the next aisle, ducking into shelves and boxes to avoid being hit. There are more guys back here, but they’re not concerned about me. I strain to see the tiny directional signs that hang above each shelf, using them as guides as I search for another way out.

One. Two.

Tino’s obnoxious voice bounces off the walls. When I round the corner, I can see him standing in front of a fleet of his own men, watching them take out most the ambush. I keep going.

Three. Four. Five.

There are soldiers yelling at me now, but I don’t stop. I pummel through an aisle with pasta and take off towards the freezer section, but the chill doesn’t seep through my bones this time. My heart races with every step, feeling the crunch of glass beneath my feet. Tino’s voice rips through the chaos again, but he’s interrupted by a new wave of gunfire and shouting. 

Six. Seven.

I can see the exit sign hanging crooked above a door in front of me. I push forward, feeling the strain irritating my lopsided stitches. The door doesn’t budge, barricaded from the outside for protection. I slam into the side of it, hoping to relieve some of the blockage, but it’s no use; my side aches from the resistance and the door sticks like cement. In the bleak light, I read a plaque with the numerous fire escapes marked in the building and take off in the opposite direction. I’m going right back into the line of sight, but it’s the only way out.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

I’m nearly there, my mind chasing after my feet. I dive behind a scruffy, old couch for a moment, landing on a pile of bullet casings. I’m behind the soldiers, but that means I’m on the other side of Tino’s assault rifles. My position behind the furniture keeps me angled away from the majority of the gunfire, but occasionally a bullet will scrape the sides of the couch, fabric tearing away like skin from bone. I’m about halfway to the door, but moving means revealing my location. The door is barely illuminated by the pale moonlight. If I move fast enough, I might be able to slip through without alerting anyone or catching a bullet in the leg.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

The air feels stale and musty. As I run, I catch a soldier’s stare. He flanks the perimeter of the store, encroaching me as I stumble against the glass and debris. Tino’s men have flung tables in front of them for protection but they offer me no relief. I feel crosshairs on my neck and quicken my pace, flying into the door so hard it breaks from its hinges and I topple face-down onto the asphalt. I taste the copper tang of blood in my mouth and loose asphalt digs into the palm of my hands, but I’m losing time, so I scramble to my feet.

Three assault rifles meet my gaze. They’ve got me surrounded.


	5. five

_I wake a day later_ in a square room with two windows. Out of one, there’s an immense slab of dry land reaching the end of a barbwire fence, the dirt graying in the pale moonlight. The other just looks onto more darkness, offering no respite to my already-dark room. I’ve been tossed around enough for the past few days and now my muscles ache at my every movement. There’s enough light pouring in from the wider widow to see the faint bruises marking my legs and arms, as well as the thin scar running the length of my middle finger to my palm. It’s been washed clean, but the imprint of lose asphalt remains, a reminder of the last few hours.

It comes to me in waves. Tino’s snarling face taken aback in our verbal joust. A dark cloud of soldiers pummeling through the doors. Gunfire. Running down the old aisles, searching for an exit. The fall. Then nothing.

There’s no one else in the room with me, but then again, I’m not sure what else I’m expecting. There’s nothing else in here besides a metal chair and some bugs peppering the cement walls. Even the air tastes of desolation. But then again, I’ve been left to collect my thoughts like this before—and I’ve left others to swim in their guilt too. It’s a classic interrogation tactic, and I’m ready for them.

It won’t be easy to talk my way out of this. Towns and cities were evacuated and brought to Quarantine for protection after the virus swept across the nation and neighboring countries. Those who didn’t make it—or those who escaped—were basically left for dead. Soldiers had better things to do than to find runaways. The entire world was up in smoke at this point. But there’s something telling me Tino and his men were wanted for more than just hoarding supplies. If the soldiers hadn’t arrived when they did, I probably would’ve had a bullet between my eyes or my head on a stake as a warning to Ollie.

Anger eats at me. Either Ollie had no idea about Tino’s close whereabouts or he set me up, deliberately, to get caught. The former made him an idiot, but the latter made him an accomplice. I furrow my brow and beads of sweat roll off my forehead. The soldiers didn’t have time to question nobodies about—what did they call them?—prowlers. Or, at least, I don’t think they do. But I can’t think of a reason why they didn’t just kill me on sight. After all, they didn’t know I wasn’t working with Tino. To them, I’m just another lowlife. Pond scum. Parasite.

I’m not tied up, either, which just confuses me more. Why leave me abandoned in a room with a locked door? It’s like a glorified prison cell. The only way out is through another thick slab of concrete on hinges directly in front of me. I don’t even bother pushing it. I know it won’t move.

I try to stay mad at Ollie, but nearly all thoughts of him disappear when I think about Joe. Whether I want to admit it or not, I’m closer to him. The soldiers probably took me to some sort of holding cell, most likely in the same Quarantine location I’d left weeks ago. My heart drums in my chest. Did the soldiers recognize me? Is that why they’re keeping me here, to make sure I don’t escape again?

My thoughts are answered as the door swings open. I don’t flinch at the noise as it smacks the wall behind it. I’m getting used to surprises.

In walks a lanky guy with vibrant blue hair tossed over one side of his head. It’s box-dyed, obviously, and his dark roots are already peeking through. No time to keep up appearances when there’s walking leeches plaguing the earth. Still, the guy doesn’t even bother looking intimidating. He cracks a wild grin, almost looking elfish on his tiny face. “Franklin Michael Hardy,” he says, and I freeze. “What a pleasure it is.”

He acts like this is the most natural thing in the world, like I should stroll over and shake his hand, but I can’t move. I can’t place his face, either, though I’m good with that sort of thing. He’s still smiling, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses so they sit right up on the bridge of his nose. “Hey,” I say, relaxing my posture in the metal chair. “I’m… I’m sorry, who are you?”

If he’s offended, it doesn’t show. The door behind him hangs open, and florescent light from the hallway spills into the room like milk. “That’s the real question though, isn’t it? Who are we really?”

He sounds a lot like Nick, the scruffy guy I left back at the Allegiance camp.

When I don’t answer, he continues. “Earthlings call me Sonny Joon, but I’m not picky. Call me whatever you’d like.”

He takes a few strides toward me, close enough so I can see the webbed cracks in his glasses. It doesn’t seem to bother him, but then again, I’m beginning to think nothing does. “Sonny will do,” I say, glancing over his left shoulder to the door, still ajar. “You’re not going to close that?”

“Oh, I’m sure if you really wanted to get out you would’ve done it by now,” Sonny says, the corners of his mouth twitching into another lopsided grin. “And by the looks of you, I don’t think a door would stop you from succeeding.”

My face burns. “What am I doing here?”

Sonny looks like he’s about to give me another existential, metaphorical _bullshit_ answer, but he sees my face and his smile erases. “Intel. You’re lucky we found you before someone else did.”

“Some _one_ or some _thing_?”

“Both,” Sonny says, leaning back on the wall. “You’re in here because, well, to be honest, there’s no other place to put you. It’s one of the only rooms that’s not occupied at the moment.”

“How many other people are you holding here?” My voice sounds too threatening, but Sonny doesn’t care. He stretches his arms behind his head. “Where are the soldiers?”

“Oh, down in the barracks, I’m sure, doing soldier-y things,” he yawns. “They’re not your concern.”

“You didn’t answer my first question.”

His eyes flicker with excitement, just for a moment, before receding to their usual milky-brown. “She was right about you,” he laughs. “Always asking questions. I can see why you’re an agent.”

“ _Was_ an agent.”

“Oh, my, were you let go?”

Sonny makes a point to draw his hand to his chest in mock consolation, sarcasm laced in his words like sugar in a cake. I stand upright, towering over him, but again, he doesn’t flinch. He barely moves, his feet still sprawled out in front of him, supporting most his weight as he leans against the wall. “As far as anyone’s concern, you’re still an agent,” he says, batting me away with his hands. I retreat to the other side, to the open window, and stare at the barren earth. “And you’re useful.”

“Whose side are you on?” I mutter, sure he won’t be able to hear me at this distance. But of course, I’m wrong again.

“Yours, of course.”

Everything that comes out of his mouth is a riddle. I roll my eyes and sink back to the chair with frustration. If I wanted, I could slip by Sonny and gander off down the hallway, but who knows what waits for me outside this room. Soldiers? Guns? Another trap?

Sonny is the answer, and he’s enjoying watching me fret. “Is this Allegiance?” I stumble, thinking back to the guys I’d left behind at Tino’s post. Were they taken by soldiers too? “The soldiers, they took me from the—”

“I might be certifiably insane, but I promise you I don’t work for any crazed activists,” He snorts. Even when irritated, Sonny’s voice sounds musical, hypnotic. “I’m here on my own accord. It’s… well, we’re a lively bunch.”

I rub my temples. “Can you at least tell me what purpose I serve being here?”

“How’s your side?”

I spin to face him, thrown off by his misdirection, but not stupid enough to misplace it. My hands travel back to my wound, and when I pull up my shirt, I realize the bandage has been redressed. Even the horrible stitches look better in this lighting. Someone must’ve corrected Joe’s horrible handiwork.

“It’s… better. But I guess you knew that.”

“Guess I did,” he says, pushing off the wall to stand again. His glasses teeter on the edge of his nose and he swipes them back up. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so elusive. It’s just that the nature of this is delicate.”

“The nature of _what_ , though?”

Sonny unrolls a piece of paper tucked away in his back pocket and hands it to me. There’s a list of several names, each one unrecognizable, until I spot my name toward the bottom along with my brother’s. “You’re searching out these people?”

“Anyone to help.”

I open my mouth to ask another obvious question, but I know Sonny will just sidestep it like my others, so I recalculate. “My brother isn’t with me.”

The muscles in his cheek tick. “Yes, I know. You’re not an easy man to find yourself.”

“I went looking for him but ended up outside Quarantine borders,” I explain for what feels like the thousandth time. “I’m trying to reorient and circle my way back to him.”

All the light and sparkle in Sonny’s face melts like a crayon in the sun. “That’s the thing, Frank,” he begins with a heavy sigh, his gaze falling to his feet. “We don’t think your brother _is_ in Quarantine anymore.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I shake my head. “The guards took him to punishment for acting out. They wouldn’t—” My breath hitches.

“No, we don’t think he’s been killed, either,” Sonny interrupts, waving his hand through the air to erase my train of thought. “He’s just not where we thought he’d be. There’s something much bigger happening.”

We both lapse into silence, letting the revelation hang in the air for a few uneasy seconds. What could be bigger than a zombie apocalypse? I shudder. Even throughout the contagion, no one had bothered calling those things _zombies_. It was word that stuck to people’s throats, created more “terror” than needed, filled hearts up with dread when we needed to keep the faith. Even the guards back in Quarantine refused to name the horrors beyond the fence. They rarely spoke of it at all, even though nearly everyone had seen their destruction. Almost like if they didn’t mention it, maybe the whole thing would just go away.

“What could be worse than this?”

Sonny chuckles. “I didn’t say _worse_ , I said _bigger_. There’s a difference.”

“Not really.”

He points to the hallway and gestures for me to follow him. Part of me feels like sinking into the chair and never standing again, letting my body grow cold with the metal. But Sonny remains persistent, motioning so dramatically that I nearly leap through the doorway to avoid his wild antics.

Outside the cold room, the hallway surges with warmth. It’s connected to a series of other chambers and rooms like the previous, but these ones are brightly lit and stuffed with boxes of paper. It’s computer intel, like the kind we used to get at the Network, only some of the boxes look like date back years ago, the paper yellowing from the neglect.

Sonny proves to be an honest guide. He mentions some things about the combine but never enough, leaving me guessing as we pass. He gives just enough information to keep me quiet, and for that I’m grateful. We pass a series of long hallways that lead to something called the _Archives_ , which isn’t hard to figure out. But then there’s a trio of doors to my left holding a ton of ancient computers, each one strung up and tangled in cords, some purring in electronic sleep. I didn’t even know people still operated on computers these days, not since the outbreak. But the last couple of days have proven to me that nothing is ever as it seems.

We walk for what feels like forever, leaving big rooms with metal beds and smaller storage closets in our wake. The beds look unused and the storage closets are all but sealed shut, leaving me to wonder who else roamed these halls other than Sonny. For all I know, he’s a madman living in the bowels of an old office space. But that wouldn’t explain how he knew my name, knew my brother, and knew so much about my capture.

We round another corner and then the hallway swells into another room, like a river opening to a lake. There’s a cluster of people hovering over some newer-looking computers, chattering quietly amongst themselves. They look like bees in a hive, fluttering over each other’s shoulders, picking up papers and carrying it to other places, buzzing along with the electric energy. A well-oiled machine. Sonny beams next to me, almost proud of himself.

“Gals and pals, he’s awake,” He says, stepping forward. A few people turn around in their seats, giving me sidelong glances before going back to their work. None of them look familiar. “He needs to be debriefed. Kestrel, Cardinal, Eagle. Conference room, with me, if you would.”

Another turn of heads, another row of empty faces, until the silhouette cutting through the fading light turns to face me. Long, lean legs carry the figure forward until they’re standing in the middle of the room, right in the swirl of electricity, a hundred computer monitors casting a hundred different lights onto her face. She looks just as perfect as I last saw her, though the outbreak has thinned her some. Still, she waits for no further instruction and throws her arms around my neck, waiting for me to pull her clean off the ground.

“Franklin Michael,” she breathes into my chest. Her hair smells like ash, but I press my mouth onto the top of her head. “It’s really you, right?”

“It’s really me,” I say with a little laugh. Everyone’s watching us now, but I don’t care. I don’t even care that our embrace pushes passed what’s acceptable for a couple of friends reunited. I thought everyone I cared about, save for my family, was lost to this world and its horrors. But I hold Nancy Drew a little closer and a little longer, just to prove to myself that she’s still here, still breathing, still alive.


	6. six

_So, this is Cathedral._

I extend my legs out in front of me, working with a loose chunk of wood jutting out of the table with my foot. The “conference room” is nothing like anything I’ve seen back home, but a wide room with stale, putrid air and a makeshift table made of old wooden pallets slapped together with rusty nails. With a whole room expanded with fully-functioning computers neighboring us, this room feels devoid of effort. But I’m not here to argue about the circumstances of our meeting. I'm only here to listen to their plan.

Sonny sits at the other end of the table, beating his fingers into the splintered wood. Nancy flanks the other side of me, her knees bumping into mine as she shifts in her chair. We’re so close that it’d be inappropriate if it weren’t for the fact that the table prevents any sort of personal space. She leans against her hands, her elbows propped up on the table, watching the others file in the room and take their place.

Eagle sits next to Sonny. He’s as tall as I am, with dark, shifty eyes and a buzz cut. I learn his name is Alec, but nearly everyone here addresses each other by their code name. The other, Maya—Cardinal—has a plain face with symmetrical features, though her nose looks squished, tiny, like an ironed button.

“All right, kids, here’s what’s happening,” Sonny says, clasping his hands together. The sound makes Nancy jump, her forearms flying down to hit the table with a smack. Her face reddens, but the other two don’t notice. Or don’t care. Seems like the latter. “We’ve found Finch.” He gestures toward me.

“Finch?”

“Your code name,” Nancy says, nudging my ribcage. “We have sort of a bird thing going on here. Started with my mom. I don’t think they wanted to change it.”

_Oh, right, your mom was a spy_.

“Still no word on Mallard, but the search continues,” Sonny continues, throwing the little scrap of paper on the ground. The names burn outlines into my brain, but still, none of them sound familiar. “Kestrel, any word on Magpie and Swift?”

“Safe in QN,” Nancy replies as if it’s obvious. She lowers her voice, ducking her chin to whisper to me. “QN—Quarantine New York. Bess and George.”

_Swift and Magpie. Bess and George_.

At Network, we didn’t have as near complicated codes like this, though Joe made it his mission to have code names for every case, even if I didn’t go along with it.

_Joe. Mallard_. I commit it to memory.

“Good,” Sonny nods. “All right, Finch. I need you to tell us everything about your adventure from QC to here. Start from the beginning. Don’t leave out any details. Everything is important.”

_QC_. Quarantine Cleveland, where I’d last seen my brother. Eagle and Cardinal search my face for some sort of giveaway, but I remain neutral. Underneath the table, Nancy squeezes one of my hands for reassurance.

I’m positive my face blooms red, but I talk fast, going over every detail of my escape, down to the last blade of glass. A couple times, Sonny—Crow—stops me to ask something, but other than that, the rest of the entourage remains quiet. Nancy jots down some notes, but that’s like her.

“I didn’t know Tino and Ollie—the man from Allegiance—knew each other,” I finish, watching Nancy’s face explode in disgust. She knows Tino too, and she’s not happy about our run-in. “I was trying to get out of there. You know the rest.”

Crow nods. “We had operatives staked down there after we caught wind of your location in an Allegiance camp.”

“Operatives?” My voice is dry. “There are infiltrators in the camp?”

“There’s infiltrators everywhere,” Eagle snips. His voice sounds like the rumble of a car engine. There are even hints of an accent I can’t place. “Don’t be so sure you know everything.”

Nancy tucks a piece of her long, strawberry-blonde hair behind her ear. It’s fraying at the end, probably because she’s been picking at her split ends. Nervous habit. “No need for the attitude,” she says, and Eagle slinks down into his seat. “Basically, we got information that you were settled at the southeast Allegiance camp. There were some soldiers going down on a raid anyway once they sniffed out Tino’s men. It was honestly just good timing that you were there. One of the soldiers recognized you and brought you in.”

“What is this?”

Cardinal reappears under a curtain of black oily hair. Her eyes are kind, but she speaks sharply. “The government operates over us, but not _in_ us,” she explains. “They give us permission to use this space and track down prowlers and other criminals. Anything that could pose a threat.”

Eagle steps in, but his tone is lighter. “We’re allowed to stay here because we give them something unaffordable. Information.” He swallows hard. “But we don’t tell them everything.”

“Can’t that get you killed?” I wonder aloud, searching Nancy’s face for an answer. She’s not looking at me, though. Her eyes remain on Sonny’s list, still lingering on the edge of the table. “I mean—how is it possible people don’t find out what you’re _really_ doing here? They’ve got eyes all over the place.”

“And we’ve got ours,” Crow bites. “The less they know, the better. We aren’t Allegiance. We don’t fight to survive, we fight to conquer. But there are things that are happening we can’t really explain. It’s need-to-know.”

“The only thing I know is that whatever is hunting out there doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon unless we come up with a vaccine.” I look around the room. They’re all staring at Crow again, waiting for his rebuttal. Even Nancy waits for his words like a dog waiting for a treat.

“We’re with you,” he breathes. “Every second we spend musing over fumbled equations is another three people dead. There are people working on a vaccine at the abandoned hospital, but not much can be done to study these creatures. They’re highly contagious. We’ve already lost two doctors from faulty accidents.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?” I slam my fist down on the table, a splinter wiggling into my skin. “You said they took my brother somewhere. He isn’t in Quarantine. What did you mean by that?”

“We don’t know,” Nancy’s hand is back. It feels so small inside my much larger one, but her touch is enough to make me sink back into my chair and relax. Something about her always calms down. “Headcount proved he wasn’t in QC last time we checked.”

I snort. “Headcount only accounts for bunkers. He’s not with my mom and dad. Of course he wouldn’t show up.”

“Contrary to your popular belief, even punished people show up in Headcount because even punished people get bunkers,” Crow snaps. “The guards do it separately, but they count everyone in Quarantine. Even people in holding cells. He’s not there.”

“Where would they have taken him?” I say, my throat becoming tight.

“We don’t know that either.”

“Well what _do_ you know?”

Crow considers his answer, feigning thoughtfulness. “I know that there’s something very wrong about the way our world is operating, and I’m not just talking about the virus. We’re working closely with both sides to figure out what.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re all, what, double-double agents? Betraying both sides?”

Nancy frowns. “We’re the middlemen, Frank. We’re trying to get this situated before it blows up in our faces,” she says. “We’re all concerned about our loved ones. I check to make sure everyone is all right every day I spend here. I pour over Headcount to make sure I see my dad’s name, Hannah’s name, Bess, George, Ned. Even you and Joe. And you both disappeared around the same time, and I panicked—”

I sigh. “What do you want me to do?” I’ve asked the question too many times to count, and each time left me with more questions and less time to reach my brother. I hope this doesn’t end the same.

Eagle pushes the list toward me. “We need your help to get them.”

I scour the list, but it makes no difference. “I don’t know who any of these people are.”

“I do,” Nancy offers. “I mean, I don’t _know_ them, but I know where they are. I know where to find them.”

“Where’s that?”

“Quarantine and Allegiance,” Crow mutters. “All of them, spread out in different places.”

I choke on my spit, the convulsion sending me up and out of my seat. “You want me to go _back_ there?” I don’t know which I dread more, the gaping claws of Quarantine or the stench of Allegiance camps.

“We have people inside, Frank, they’ll get you back—”

“Why don’t you just send for them?”

Crow stops and blinks. “We can’t let anyone know what we’re doing. One whiff of this to the outside world and we’re finished like a collapsed star.”

Blood pounds in my ears. “What if I say no?” I can’t look at Nancy’s face. Shouldn’t. Won’t. “I’m here for one reason and one reason only, to find my brother before he gets killed.”

“He’s on the list too, isn’t he?” Cardinal points a skinny finger at the letters. She’s right, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. “Finding the others means finding him, too.”

“Yeah, except he’s the only one that’s disappeared,” I fall into a pace, certain my strides will leave a permanent imprint on the wall. “How convenient.”

“Frank, it’s not like that,” Nancy spins in her chair to face me, her face reddened from the discussion. “If we knew where he was—if _I_ knew where he was I would tell you, I promise.” Her eyes well with tears, but I look away, embarrassed.

“I know this is a lot,” Crow says behind me. He runs a hand through his dusty, blue-brown hair. “But you’re our best shot. You’re the only one who’s gotten out of both places alive.”

“We could end this thing,” Nancy says, pulling on my arm. I don’t budge, but she keeps pulling, forcing me to turn on my heels to face her again. Her blue eyes are exactly like I remembered, a strong pull of nicotine, inviting, intoxicating. “We could figure this whole thing out.”

It’s suddenly just her and me in the room. “You’re still all about trying to save the world, aren’t you, detective?” I say, allowing a smile to creep on my lips. She has this infuriating way of getting me to lighten up, even in the world’s worst moments. “I think you’re in way over your head.”

“I am,” she admits. “But so are you. We’re in this together.”

A cough dissolves the memory. We’re back in the conference room, Cardinal and Eagle exchanging loaded glances. Muscles tense, I turn to Crow. “I help you, you help me?” I offer. “You won’t stop searching?”

For once, he looks flustered. He straightens out his dirty shirt, but the wrinkles cling to it like and. “Of course,” he says. “He’s just as important to this as you are.”

_More than important_ , I want to say, but I just nod instead.

* * *

 

Nancy cradles her knobby knees in her arms, one hand clinging tightly to the folds of her skin while the other trails down her calf. Her hair spills forward, a waterfall of strawberry blonde, covering her eyes as if to mask the fact that she’s staring at me intently, waiting for me to bolt in the first moments of solitude.

Instead, I stay still. There’s no use running and there’s no use trying to argue. The people here want what they want and I want what I want, overlapping briefly because my brother made his name on their list. Crow still won’t tell me what the list is for, and even though Nancy sits on the edge of her cot, looking unamused, I doubt she’ll tell me either. There’s something bigger going on here, but I doubt I’ll ever find out. No matter. Once I find Joe it will make no difference.

“Frank?”

Her voice is syrup-sweet, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “What?”

“Something is wrong.”

_Obviously._

“I just need to find Joe,” I say, rubbing my temples. A fresh shower and some clean clothes have done me some good, but my thoughts still itch. I’d wanted to leave soon after our debriefing meeting but my yearning only fell on deaf ears. It’s the middle of the night, and we need our sleep. I glance back down at the cot adjacent to Nancy’s, the one I’m expected to sleep on. Knowing Nancy is five feet away from me is enough to keep me awake. I sit beside it, pushing myself as far away from her as I can. So far, even, that it feels like I might mold completely into the cement.

She lets my words hang in the air. That’s like her. She’s thoughtful, always trying to make sure her words count. “You don’t trust them.”

I shrug. “One minute I’m running around amid rapid gunfire and the next I wind up here,” After a long pause, I stand, stretching my long legs. She barely moves. “What do you expect?”

“I expect you to trust me, I guess, of all people.”  

We lapse back into cold silence, both picking at the meaning of her words. It’s a loaded statement. She’s talking about Cathedral’s plan, our upcoming mission, but there’s something hidden behind the letters. She’s good at solving mysteries, but she’s also good at _being_ one. It’s no surprise our exchanges are heavy and cryptic. Still, I fight the urge to ask her about it now. There’s no use having this conversation.

“We should get some sleep,” I say, watching her unfold her arms around her legs. She leans back onto her cot, adjusting her position to get comfortable. Even in the dark, it’s hard not to see how worn she looks. Her cheeks sink into her face, dark circles painted around swollen, bloodshot eyes. She hasn’t slept in weeks.

But I suppose no one has. Sleeping with one eye open is almost second nature in our world now.

She yanks a thin blanket up to her chin, disappearing underneath the gray fabric. If it weren’t for her hair, she’d fade into the background, her skin graying in the light. “What time do you want to leave tomorrow?”

“As early as possible,” I climb into my own cot, the springs wheezing underneath my weight. It sounds as if it’ll fold into itself, but as I stretch out, the tension recedes and holds firm. “Whatever that means.”

“Seven, then.”

“What time is it now?” I squint into the black, searching along my wrist for a watch that’s not there.

“Four.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's so late that i don't know why i'm posting this now.


	7. seven

_Dawn comes with a_ painting of orange-yellow streaks in the sky, the unsettling night air settling back into the familiar autumn breeze. It’s been a day, but I’m still not used to the stinking tunnels of Cathedral. I breathe easier once we’re outside, crossing the grounds at a quick pace. Crow leads the way, his faded blue hair catching the light as he walks.

I woke before Nancy this morning, throwing on my tattered boots and jacket as quiet as possible. She squirms in her sleep, one hand tossing over her face, fighting an invisible monster. I didn’t have the heart or the gull to wake her up. Something about touching her this early in the morning made my teeth hurt. She joined us in the hallways, making note of our available supplies.

 According to Crow, Cathedral is considered middle-ground. He, Cardinal, and Nancy, along with some others, were recruited after the outbreak to help investigate the cause and seek out information for the medical teams operating on basecamp. There’s a few different camps, normally hitched to a Quarantine, but this one works independently from the rest, serving as a hub for government officials and officers. As we cover more ground, I make out cars and trucks in the distance, engines humming against the pavement. In fact, the only thing different between basecamp and the Allegiance camp is the cars and electricity. I spot a working generator cradled up against the walls of nearly every building.

Regardless, people walk around aimlessly, some covered in armor and others bundled in thick clothing. I keep to Crow’s flank, making sure to avoid eye contact with anyone. He’s well-known around here.

So is Nancy, evidently. Some people wave while others offer her smiles, bustling past with boxes or binders with thick, text-heavy pages of intel. She trails behind us, eyes wandering to a large building to our immediate right. It looks like an old warehouse. The walls climb to about thirty feet, spotted with dirty windows and broken glass. People file in and out of the doors, still intact, without more than a few words to one another.

It appears to be just another communication center, but Crow catches Nancy’s gaze and clears his throat. “Stop fussing.” Like a child who has misbehaved, Nancy sinks down into her oversized jacket, losing her gaze to the floor. Leaves crackle beneath our feet, almost frozen in the chill.

“What’s… what’s that about?”

Crow keeps his gaze forward, concentrated, fixed. I’ve seen looks like that, the same one my mother used to give my father when they were talking about something I wasn’t supposed to hear. I set my jaw, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.

Nancy’s tiny voice creeps up behind me. “Quarantine Heads meet there to discuss… things.”

“Heads?”

“People put in charge by the government to handle things that happen in Quarantine and the surrounding bases,” Crow sniffs, his voice low and gravelly. “Basically, our boss.”

A shrill-looking woman waltzes from the doorway as if on cue, pinning back her burnt-red hair as she tosses someone a stack of paperwork. At the sight of Crow, she blinks, as if stunned to see him in her presence. “And what are _you_ doing here?”

“My job, ma’am,” he says, turning to face her.

She eyes me up and down before turning to Nancy. “Any updates?”

“Third trial was unsuccessful,” Nancy says, her fingers falling into another familiar nervous habit. The skin around her fingernails is red and swollen, cracked with dried blood. “They’re working with Pool J to see if there’s any improvements.”

The woman’s lips flatten into a thin line. “Well that is…” She glares at me. The feeling makes me want to leap out of my skin into a new body. “Disappointing.”

“One step closer,” Crow chimes in, sensing my discomfort. “I have my guys working on the tower today and tomorrow.”

They’re speaking plain English, but I still find myself lost, searching the base for any building that stretches higher than the warehouse. In the distance, through the thick fog, a structure juts out of the ground, wires dangling from its various metal branches. _A radio tower_.

“Should’ve been done yesterday,” the woman bites, shoving past us, her heels cracking on the pavement like gunfire. The people around us mold to her path and she cuts through the sea at ease, plucking off her thick, leather gloves before disappearing into another building.

Without speaking, Crow continues, leading us behind the warehouse to another chain-linked fence. It scales a few feet above my head, drumming with electricity. Crow cuts another left and a right, pulling us further and further away from Cathedral headquarters, until we emerge into another long alley, this one remotely deserted besides the few people lucky enough to light up a cigarette. My nose burns as we slip through the smoke.

“In here,” Crow says, jabbing a thumb at a boarded-up door connected to a crumbling brick building. Inside, the air is moist but smells like metal and more smoke. It’s dimly lit, flickering lights powered by another generator, exposing just enough light to see by. We make our way through a room with narrow ceilings until it eventually opens to a wider one, like a river expanding into a lake.

There’s piles of car parts scattered around the vicinity, but the room is bare, save for one girl humming over a set of tools. Her counter is cluttered with scrap metal and electrical wiring, and I don’t miss the handgun keeping watch at her side. Seems like no one can go anywhere without additional protection.

 She doesn’t hear us approach until Crow whistles. In a panic, she drops her screwdriver with a scream, whipping around to face us, one hand teetering on barrel of her gun.

“Earth to Ryan, everything is fine,” Crow calls out, his hands up in front of him. The girl relaxes almost immediately, reaching down to pick up her fallen tool. “We need a car.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” she laughs.

“Really, Ryan,” Nancy nods towards a beat-up pickup truck, much like the one I’d been sleeping on, in the corner. “It’s important.”

Ryan bats a hand, pulling her chin-length hair behind an ear. “I hear ya, I hear ya,” She spins in her barstool chair, making it about three times around before sticking her hand out. “She’s functional. Just need the service order.”

Crow frowns. “This is Frank. He’s going to help us with the _thing_ we discussed the other day.”

She smiles. “Nice t’ meet you, I’m Ryan.”

“Frank.”

“Serious little bugger, isn’t he?” She laughs again, making another turn on her chair.

Nancy folds her arms over her chest. “We don’t have a service order, Ryan. We just need the car.”

Ryan stops spinning, one foot smacking down on the pavement to halt her momentum. Her big eyes narrow. “You think Head Scallari is going to be okay with that?”

It’s Nancy’s turn to grimace. “Toni doesn’t have to know. She thinks we’re working on the radio tower.”

I think back to the woman charging out of the warehouse, looking at me like a bug through a telescope. Crow said she was their boss, but he also said they were operating without her knowledge. She’d never let them—us—do this without her assistance, though Crow insisted it was for Cathedral’s own good.

“You’re doing this without her permission? Are you insane—”

Crow claps his hands together, the sound drowning out Ryan’s frantic rambles. “Look, earthling, there’s no time to sit here and squabble. Either you help us or you don’t.”

Ryan screws up her face, distorting her childlike features. “That could get us killed, Sonny. You know that.”

But Crow just shrugs, messing up his blue mane. It sticks out in all directions. “There are people getting killed every day, Kilpatrick. We have to do something about it if they won’t.”

 _Nick would like him_ , I think, wondering where in the hell that scruffy kid was. Probably poking at a fire somewhere, stuffing the tension with more of his wild political theories, avoiding the end of Ollie’s shotgun. I wonder if I’ll ever see them again. For Nick, I hope. For Ollie, I don’t.

Ryan stretches her shirt over and over again, picking at a loose thread. “If anyone asks, I’m telling them you stole it.”

Crow grins. “It’s not the first time I’ve been in trouble with the law.”

“I know,” Ryan says. “That’s why I’m considered this might be your last.”

 

Twenty minutes later, the truck comes alive beneath us. It’s been a while since I’ve driven stick, but I remember the basics. My foot taps the gas, letting the engine warm up, while my other foot presses down on the clutch. Slowly, I move the shifter into second gear, letting the whine of the truck drown out any nervousness left in the pit of my stomach.

Crow rides in the backseat, directing me through the mobs of people towards the outpost closest to the radio tower. We’ll drop him off there and then speed off towards the nearest road, using a stained, marked-up map Crow gave us as a guide. Boxes of bullets bounce in the bed, strapped down with some bungee cords. Nancy keeps both of our guns by her feet, pulling her legs up onto the seat. Whether or not she’s ever shot a gun, I don’t know, and I hope I never have to find out.

I keep my hand on the shifter, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel as we move through more and more people. There’s a few other cars on the road, mostly soldiers crammed onto government vehicles. With their eyes masked behind thick sunglasses, they sit, stoic, armed, waiting for their next assignment. I want to feel bad for them but I keep thinking about that summer day three years ago, being thrown onto the dirt like old tennis shoes, roped into a big caravan and taken into a place a pinch less dangerous than the outside world. I press on, ignoring their obvious stares, letting Crow direct me further and further away from the glob of people. The farther we travel the sparser the road becomes, until the occasional bob of a head peeking out of a nearby barrack is all we can see. We only stop once to convince a flock of soldiers manning the east gate to let us through. Crow does all the talking, his voice fast and slippery, and they let us through with little interrogation.

Sunlight filters through the slits in the clouds, providing some much-needed warmth. There’s no heat in the truck and I can feel my knuckles start to tense from the cold, clamping down harder on the steering wheel as I shift gears again. The truck bucks underneath my grip but I keep it steady, rounding another large bend. There’s big fields, sanctioned off with more electric fences, outlining the dirt path. Now closer, I can begin to see wires dripping from the radio tower, some connected to other structures and others hanging lose. At the top, several rungs from broken ladders stick out while others remain intact, making for a dangerous climb. If someone were to slip there’d be no coming back.

“Right up there is fine,” Crow says, flicking a finger at a barren patch of grass a few meters from the tower entrance. Once we’re parked, he climbs out and slams the door behind him, pausing to crane his neck through the passenger side window. “All right, kiddies, this is it.”

Nancy offers him a small smile. “Stay safe, Sonny.”

He scoffs, a tendril of hair falling short of his mouth. “Safe is boring.”

I gesture to his map, still folded out in Nancy’s lap. “We’ll call when we find someone,” I say with a nod. “We’ll keep you updated.”

“Take your time,” he winks. “I still have to fix this damn radio tower. Frequency is on there, though. On the back. Give me a buzz when you’re safe. There’s a few gallons of gas in the trunk. I could only convince Ryan to give us what we needed.”

“I understand,” I nod, the muscles in my cheeks beginning to tick. The thought of running out of gas in infected territory is enough to make my hair stand on edge. “First stop is Allegiant camp where you—” My voice hitches. “—rescued me. That’s not far from here.”

Sonny just laughs. “Have fun with _those_ people. Not sure they’re very fond of you.”

I sink back into my seat, my grip on the shifter becoming tighter with each passing second. My stomach churns what little food I’d managed to scarf down before we left, and while I thought it’d help my nerves, it’s only making them worse now, throwing me into a fit of nausea. Nancy smiles again, waving Sonny off to the radio tower’s tangles and wires. “I’ll keep them in line.”

“You always do, Kestrel!” He calls over his shoulder, giving us two thumbs-up before climbing through a broken window, hair tattered and matted with dirt.

Once we’re alone, Nancy’s tiny hand slides over mine on the shifter. “We can do this,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze. There’s something so comforting about Nancy Drew—the splatter of freckles across the bridge of her nose, her dirty hair swept up into a ponytail, the bones of her wrists poking out to dig into my forearm. Even in the midst of all this chaos, she still brings me some normalcy. It’s the tenderness of her voice, the way she stares at you with such compassion, such understanding, that makes me want to melt into the floor.

It hits me all at once how much I’ve missed this, how much I’ve missed _her_ , how much I’ve missed staring into her crystal blue eyes and wasting the day away. But we don’t have time to be poetic. We have a job to do.

Her words stay with me as I rev up the engine again, watching a flock of birds shoot through the morning air. I wish I could fly away with them, away from this place. But all I can do is keep my eyes peeled on the world in front of me and hope Nancy’s right.

 

“Abby Sideris,” Nancy mutters.

“What?” I say, feeling the familiar hitch of the truck as I switch gears. My body feels cramped against the steering wheel but the electric adjustments no longer work.

“That’s who we’re supposed to be getting first,” She runs a finger over Sonny’s sloppy handwriting, as if feeling braille. Then, she points to the little marking on the map. “We got another hour or so, I’d say.”

We’ve already been driving for several, but there’s no signs of any infected, which is more than enough reason to press on. Behind us, a storm brews in the distance, dark purple clouds pushing past the wind, intent on lashing out at any second. With any luck, we’ll miss it, but, then again, I don’t have much luck these days.

Nancy pulls up one of Sonny’s guns resting by her feet. It’s not loaded but she waves it around like it is, pulling at the clip until it springs into action. “How do you hold one of these things?” The truck jumps underneath me as my hand slips from the shifter. We stall for a moment before I manage to regain control, slamming down on the gas to cover more ground. “What?”

“You don’t know how to hold a _gun_?” I spit, my eyebrows shooting up on my forehead. She only shakes her head. “Just point and pull the trigger. It’s not that difficult.”

She mimics the action, her fingers closing around the grip. It’s no bigger than my head but it looks massive in her tiny hands, her fingers looking like streaks of lightning against the black metal. She squints, imagining a target in front of the windshield. “No,” I say, using one hand to move her arms up to eye-level. “Shoot with both eyes open. You’re more accurate that way.”

The gun falls to her lap and then back to the ground again. “I don’t like how easily you talk about this.”

“What? I got trained at the Network, and so did Joe—”

“I’ve never _shot_ anyone before,” she sniffs, pulling her arms around herself.

“Me neither.”

Nancy glances out of the widow, staring at the webbed cracks creeping up the left side. She runs her fingertips over it as if it’ll tell her all its secrets, and I wonder what I’d do if she touched me like that. The thought stays with me for a second before disintegrating into the hum of the engine. “I’m sorry, you know. About before.”

She turns to look at me, pushing her lips out into a pout. “What do you mean?”

“I was hesitant and judgmental,” I run my hand through my hair. It’s getting longer, the sides curling around the sides of my ears. As my hand falls to the shifter again, I graze my cheek. It’s been awhile since I’ve shaved, too, the stubble lining the bottom half of my jaw. “You didn’t do anything. It was wrong of me.”

Her hand is back atop mine, her thumb trailing along my knuckles. I can almost feel the color invade my face. “It’s okay,” she says, keeping her voice low. “I guess I would be the same way.”

“You know, when I was little, Joe and I used to walk down our street to the ice cream shop,” I say, my mind racing. Her hand stays put, continuing to rub my skin. “Mom always used to tell me, literally, every time we left the house, ‘Take care of your brother, Franklin’…” I trail off, focusing on the expanding landscape. More broken buildings, more forgotten towns. I don’t bother looking at her. I know those eyes will only fill with more sadness and I can’t bear to look at them.

Her fingers find the edge of my palm, working at it until we’re intertwined. I don’t like how it makes me feel, the warmth in my stomach, the static in my toes. It’s enough to make me almost veer off the road, my knuckles going white as I grip the steering wheel tighter, pretending not to notice she’s gotten closer, invading my personal space.

“It’s not your fault,” she says.

I’d sat up at night wondering if I’d ever hear those words, if anyone could assess my situation and tell me I was in the clear, but to my dismay, her words give me no consolation. Regardless of our one year separation, I’d always been responsible for him. I always made sure he got to bed on time and didn’t do anything stupid. This time, though, I was the stupid one. I let him run his mouth to the guard and, better yet, I didn’t stop them when they took him away. He’s my baby brother, and I let them take him away.

 The knot in my stomach grows with each turn of the road, keeping eyes glued onto the map Nancy taped onto the dashboard. Only miles separate us. I’ll find my brother and find a way to make it up to him, even if I lose my mind in the process.

“Do you miss him?” Nancy says suddenly, interrupting my train of thought.

I sigh, letting the action take hold of my entire body. “Yes,” I admit, noticing her hand has drawn away. Without her touch, my hand feels cold and sticky against the shifter, tensing after every bump in the road. “I miss his stupid sense of humor.”

She laughs this time, letting her red hair trickle down past her shoulders. “He always had the best jokes, didn’t he?”

“ _Has_ ,” I find myself saying, and she cocks her head in question. My voice falls back into my throat. “I just mean… he _has_ the best jokes. Not had.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding. “Of course.”

There’s no use in referring to Joe in the past tense, like some forgotten memory brushed under the rug. He’s alive, he’s fighting, he’s giving the guards hell. He’s probably throwing a fit about the food, complaining about the water, yelling for his freedom. He’s probably giving the soldiers hell, cracking bad jokes and telling inappropriate stories. He’s probably taking a beating for me, and I’ll go to the end of the earth to find him.

He’s a _Hardy_ , for fuck’s sake. I know he’s alive. He has to be.

 

By the time we reach the Allegiance camp, Nancy is fast asleep. The sun still hangs in the evening sky, the pinky hues fading into deep purple, and the temperature has dropped some. I can see smoke billowing out of huts and quarters and cut through a thin patch of forest, finding a spot behind a group of pine trees to conceal the truck. The storm clouds behind us have subsided for now but part of me feels like they’ll be back with a vengeance, so I waste no time in waking Nancy up.

I push on her shoulders gently, not sure where else to touch her. I feel awkward and stupid, standing with my feet in ankle-high mud, towering over her little body. She’s crawled up into a ball, her head pressed up against the center console. She stirs at my touch, flopping over on her back to stretch. It’s the most peaceful I’ve seen her in days, but like anything, it won’t last. When she comes to, she notices my stare and gathers herself privately, fixing her hair in the cracked rearview mirror. I stuff the keys to the truck in my pocket, glancing back down to the guns on the floor.

“Should we bring them?” She asks, chewing on her bottom lip. She doesn’t want to use them and neither do I.

I shake my head. “They’ll take them as soon as we walk through the gate.”

She falls silent, trailing behind me like a lost dog. We take the left side of the premises, rounding the jagged fence until we reach a large gate strangled together with a large chain and lock. The sunlight wavers on the metal making it look like metallic gold, exposing the dirt path beyond and the huts lining the perimeter. It looks just like I’d left it.

Even in the approaching darkness, the guards are quick to respond, their guns flying up to their guts in anticipation of a brawl. I throw my hands up, surrendering. “I’m here to see Nick,” I say, nodding towards the larger quarters at the opposite end of the fence. “He’s expecting me. Go get him.”

The guard on the left growls. It’s a woman with a hat obscuring half of her dainty features, though a jagged scar works its way through her eyebrow. “He’s _expecting_ you? What is this, a fucking date?”

Nancy flinches at the woman’s language, but I don’t budge. She’s not used to this, but I am. “Just go get him and tell him Frank is here.”

The two guards exchange loaded glances, but the woman retreats, leaving us alone with the other guard and his chiseled shotgun. It’s much like Ollie’s old one, stained with dried blood, the sharp edges looking more like claws than the end of a barrel. He says nothing, keeping his eyes fixated on Nancy. If she’s nervous, it doesn’t show. She stands tall, arching her back to gain a few inches, leaning on the balls of her feet for support.

“Dex,” the woman calls from afar, waving us through. “The kid knows him after all.”

He pulls at the chain until it falls loose with a clang, hitting the adjacent piece of fence where it's attached. Nancy and I slip through without another word, offering a small head nod for thanks. Now inside, my shoulders sink back down to their normal position, rounding forward as if to carve out my bad posture. Nancy walks in line with me, now, trying her hardest to make us look like a determined posse, but people barely notice us. We blend in with the others, shuffling past children and smoking fire pits. Some sit around and eat cold beans while others sharpen knives with rocks, keeping themselves busy until their needed next.

We make our way to the wooden cabin. A chamber of smoke cuts through the sky like pencil on paper. If I’m right, Nick will be inside. That also means Ollie is probably nearby with his daughter, stewing with anger. Best case scenario, he’s out on another supply raid, but the descending sun tells me there’s a slim chance for that. It’s not safe to go out after dark. Animals aren’t the most dangerous things in our woods anymore.

I push open the heavy door, feeling the smoke tickle my throat. “Nick?” I say, peering around the room. “I’m back.”

He appears from the loft above, jumping down to hit the ground with a reverberating _smack_. “God, am I happy to see you, man.”

For once, I am too.


	8. eight

_“Is Ollie around?”_ I say, not knowing whether I even want to hear the answer. Anger seethes through my teeth like vicious waves against the shore.

Nick blinks. He’s not used to being the center of attention. “No, my dude. For now, you’re safe from his impending wrath.”

“More like he’s safe from mine.”

He shrugs, patting a little spot on one of the makeshift seats. I’m surprised he hasn’t asked about Nancy yet. She’s the only stranger in the room, yet his eyes are on me. “What happened to you after the raid?”

It’s obvious he doesn’t know about Ollie’s past relationship with Tino and the rest of the prowlers. If he does, he’s doing a good job of acting like he doesn’t. It’s my turn to shrug. “Soldiers shot up the place.”

Nancy waves in the doorway, still unsure whether she should sit down. At the mention of soldiers, she flinches. It’s probable she was ripped from her home, too, kicked into the dirt with her father and housekeeper, Hannah. I wonder if she knows where they are.

Nick growls under his breath, almost taking me by surprise. “Another perfect example of the government tryin’ to get involved in things they shouldn’t,” he snorts, kicking the ground with his heel. I expect Nancy to say something, to defend everything she knows to be true, but she remains silent in the corner, her little body barely moving an inch. “Probably took all the supplies that were there, too.”

“I’m… not sure.”

“Well, what brings you back?” He says, slapping down hard on his thighs as if to repel the bitterness in his chest.

I know Nancy has her fingers wrapped around our list, but I don’t look at her. “I’m looking for a woman. I think she lives here. Or at least did for some time.”

Nick’s eyes sparkle. “I know a little bit about the women who live here,” he says with a sheepish grin. He pauses for a moment to look up at Nancy before the smile erases from his face, replaced by blotches of red. He clears his throat, embarrassed. “Uh… I just mean—who are you looking for?”

“Abby Sideris,” Nancy calls from her spot in the doorway, wrapping her arms around her chest. The breeze behind her is unforgiving, and her body acts like a shield from the cold. I try to gesture for her to come closer, but her face hardens and she does the opposite, leaning back until her hair spills down behind her back.

Nick scratches the scruff coating his neck. “The name sounds familiar, but I can’t be sure… do you know why she was here?”

I shake my head. “Protection, probably. Although I—” I catch my words in my throat before they come out, tearing my gaze away from Nancy. “We just need to find her, that’s all.”

Nick nods. “Well, we sort of keep logs of our own around here. We can take a gander through the records, man, if you’re willing to do some digging.”

Nancy’s shadow shifts a bit. “Everything is handwritten?”

He rolls his eyes. “We don’t have the luxuries of electricity or fancy computers,” he sniffs. “We do everything the old-fashioned way.”

“Take us to the logs, then,” I say, standing upright again.

“You got it, my man.”

 

Crossing the camp is easier this time. Nick’s barracks are positioned on the edge of the premises, away from most of the bundling action. We pass the large storage unit I’d been tied up in and I steal a glance inside. Everything is pretty much how I’d left it, save for some more boxes covering up the dried blood stains on the worn cement. We pass through a group of children kicking around a deflated ball, watched by women with tired eyes and dirty clothes. I search for Freddie in the crowd but come up short. It seems the little firecracker has disappeared.

We walk through another row of bunkers, these ones reserved for larger families. Each door is painted a different color. Some are decorated with scraps of fabric or recovered posters while others remain plain except for the cracks in the brick. I’ve got no idea what they were used for before the outbreak and I don’t have long to think about it before Nick shoves me into a wooden building at the end of the row.

The sterile smell hits me almost immediately. It makes my stomach toss, and as my eyes adjust to the dim lighting, I make out the edges of metal cots in rows. My heart seeps into the floor. I’m standing in a hospital.

My feet squeak as I walk through the rows of cots, sliding over floorboards scrubbed with bleach to mask the smell of blood. Behind me, Nancy pulls a hand over her mouth, her eyes burning into my back. There are some patients here, tossing and turning, some with ugly burns and others with bleeding wounds. One woman, a frail piece of string, hugs an infant tight to her chest. It nuzzles against her open breasts, its head covered in medical gauze. I turn away, instead staring at the back of Nick’s head as he leads us into an adjoining room.

This one, fortunately, is empty. It’s also a complete mess. Papers scatter every inch of the place and boxes jut out in every direction, making the path to the other side difficult. I shove as many aside as I can, helping Nancy through the clutter until we’re behind a half-wall. Nick clears his throat, and a slim woman buried underneath a mound of crumpled papers stirs from a chair.

She awakens, brushing her long black strands of hair from her eyes. “Oh, fuck. What do you want?”

“Hey, Xenia. Need a favor.”

“You _always_ need a favor.”

“This one is important,” he says, sticking a finger up for emphasis. He gestures to Nancy and me, feigning politeness, and she straightens. “We just need to see if someone by the name of Abby Sideris ever crossed through camp.”

She laughs outright. “Oh, yes. Be my guest and filter through the dozens of boxes in this room.”

“Xenia, _please_.”

She rubs her face with her hands, poking at her hollowing cheekbones and sunken eyes. “What’s this for?”

“We’re looking for her,” Nancy pipes in behind me, peeking her head around my shoulder. “It’s very important.”

She snorts. “I’m sure it is,” She continues to rub at her temples. She’s a lanky woman as thin as a stick, bones that outgrew skin.  I could snap one of her arms in half like a toothpick. “What’s the name again?”

“Abby Sideris,” I repeat.

“And you think she was here how long ago?”

“Recently. Within the last few weeks.”

Xenia twists over in her chair, bending to scour through a box to her left full of papers like the ones scattered all over the ground. Most of them look like makeshift medical records, though they appear to be illegible. She continues to fish around a neighboring box until her index finger drags along a single page towards the middle. She yanks it out, mud-brown eyes scanning over the sheet before tossing it in Nick’s direction. “Easier than I thought,” she says. “But I’m not sure you’re going to like what I found.”

I can’t see the writing over Nick’s shoulder so I just let him read it, bracing myself for whatever news he’s about to give us. Behind him, Xenia returns to rubbing her cheeks. She looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks. I’m not the only one who lives in a constant nightmare.

“Abigail Sideris,” Nick mutters. “Yeah, she was here all right.”

“What happened to her?” Nancy whispers, resting her chin on the side of my arm.

“She’s… well, uh, she’s dead,” Nick winces, turning to hand me the sheet.

There’s a poorly drawn sketch of her at the top next to some basic demographic information. Blood type, approximate height and weight, even eye color. The handwriting is choppy and messy, but I manage to make out the notes at the bottom of the report. _Subject came late August with substantial wounds to the posterior region of the thigh. Possible serration to the femoral artery._

Nancy lets out a sharp breath. “An infected?”

Before I can get a word out, a voice slices through the stale air. “Blood loss.”

I don’t have time to fold the paper before Ollie rips it from my grasp, balling it up into a fist before tossing it over his shoulder. He moves mechanically as if controlled by someone else and shoves Nancy out of the way before cocking his gun at my neck.

I’ve been behind this barrel too many times to count. Nancy tries to cry out, but Nick throws a hand up at her, and she falls silent.

I roll my eyes. I’m not impressed by his melodramatic theater performance. If he wants to play the role of the grouchy old man, I’ll let him. But I won’t let him shoot me in the middle of a glorified filing cabinet. “Happy to see me?” I spit.

Ollie’s upper lip curls. “Don’t get smart with me, boy.”

“Whoa, boss man, wait a minute,” Nick says, his voice exasperated and strained. “You almost got him killed, can’t you just—”

Ollie shoves the barrel into my neck harder and I stumble back, tripping over another large container. Sweat trickles down my spine. “I didn’t _do_ nothin’, Nicholas. Don’t confuse decency with stupidity.”

I laugh outright, harsh and low. “You didn’t have the _decency_ to tell me you knew Tino Balducci before I almost took a bullet for you.”

His old face twitches at the name. He gives me a once-over, studying my composition. “Don’t see no bullet wounds on you, son,”

“I managed to get away before he blew my brains out,” I snap. “No thanks to you.”

Beside me, Nancy’s face grows pale. Her hair scratches her like straw, pouring blonde in the sunlight even though I know better. It’s the color of a failing sunset.

Ollie drags my attention away with another shove of his shotgun. “What are you doing back here meddlin’ around with our records?”

“Fuck you, old man.”

“ _Frank_ ,” Nancy whispers. I’ve never heard such a sweeter noise, but I ignore it and try to pretend she’s not here. Somehow, it makes me feel worse.

Nick’s wobbling, his whole body melting into the floor. He has no pull around here. No one does. Just Ollie and his bloodied shotgun. “She’s smart,” Ollie gripes, looking older by the second.

 _She’s everything_ , I want to say, but it’s neither the time nor the place. It won’t ever be the right time or the right place. “I needed to find someone. That’s it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

He reads the truth on my face and the shotgun hits the ground with a _smack_ , tossing papers up into the air like a tornado before they circle back down to the broken floor again. He clears his throat. “She came through a month ago, bleedin’,” He steps back, letting me regain myself. “Lost too much blood too fast.”

“The serrations,” I point to the crumpled report on the floor, slicked with sweat from Ollie’s hand. “What kind were they?”

He shrugs. “Dunno,” A glob of spit races to the floor. “Looked to me like a bite, but the doctors couldn’t explain her condition.”

“Condition?” Nancy asks, her eyes as wide as the sun.

Ollie doesn’t answer right away. His eyes flicker between Xenia and Nick, searching for the right way to explain. “She was… she was _fine_. Talkin’ and goin’ on about some voodoo bullshit.”

“So, the bite wasn’t from an infected,” I say, and the whole room seems to relax. “Could’ve been from an animal or something.”

“Right.” His eyes are weary, and I don’t know why.

Nancy brushes some dust off her dirty shirt and puts a hand on my shoulder. It’s enough to slow my breathing. “Okay, well… thank you. All of you. We’ll be out of your hair now.”

“It’s nearly dark,” Nick says, mouth open.

“We need to go,” I say, and my eyes scream _Joe_ but the words won’t come out. He nods, understanding. “We have a car hidden in the brush.”

Xenia almost sits up straight. “A _car_? That works?”

“Yeah,” Nancy rubs her arms. “Sort of a lucky find.”

But Ollie’s jaw tightens. “I’ll say.”

We make our way through the hospital ward, avoiding the eyes of hungry children and people who won’t live long enough to see the storm brewing in the distance. Back outside, the clouds have swept over the camp, leaving the sky milky and gray. Nick’s right. We shouldn’t be leaving, but I can’t ask to stay. Nancy will find me dead in the morning with all but an engraved tombstone because of Ollie. He reeks of disappointment and anger. We have to leave tonight.

Nick walks us back to the gates where the guards have changed shifts. Ollie stands back in the doorway of the hospital. Through the mobs of people, I can see a little red needle work its way through the loops of his arms. Freddie’s back to keep him company. Hopefully, she’ll keep him distracted long enough so he doesn’t shoot our car.

“Well,” Nick wrinkles up his nose. “Hate to see you go so soon.”

“I can sort of sense when I’m not wanted,” I admit, my voice low. The guards don’t move, their eyes fixated on the looming darkness.

“Oh, you mean Ollie? Dude, don’t sweat it, he’s just—” I hold up a hand, and Nick’s ramblings die in the back of his throat. “All right, all right. Just be safe, okay? Don’t make deals with traitors. And shoot anything that moves.”

“I thought you didn’t have murder on your agenda,” I say with a half-grin, watching the grooves of his jaw arch into a smile.

“Political activist, tree-hugger, jackass,” He lists off his fingers with a shaky laugh. “I’ll add ‘total hypocrite’ too.”

I shove my hands in my pockets. Making friends isn’t much of an option anymore, but Nick’s the closest thing to it. He slaps a hand on my shoulder. “Good man,” I say. “Add that too.”

“You got it, boss.”

Nancy dwindles in the shadows behind me, watching our awkward sentences drip into the grass. I expect a slap for not being more sentimental, but the blow never comes. She knows it’s not good to get emotional. Not during this.

Nick taps one of the guards and they both pull the giant chain away from the gates again, allowing me and Nancy to slide through the fence before it slams shut again. I wave one last time to Nick, watching him slink back into the folds of people preparing for the storm.

“He’s a nice guy,” Nancy says as we trudge through the mud. It’s grown thick from the sunlight, but my best guess is that it’ll become a trap with the rain. We should move the car as quickly as possible.

“Yeah,” I say, watching my feet sludge through brown. “He is.”

The car is right where we left it, but there are no longer slits of sunlight for comfort. The trees in the woods beyond look like teeth and the dark offers no solace for my unsettled stomach. I’d like to think the guards back at Allegiance can hear us back here, but a part of me knows they wouldn’t come even if they could. We’re on our own.

I pour about a gallon of gas into the tank and pray the truck doesn’t stall. It revs to life at my touch. Nancy looks happy. For now, at least.

We manage to pull out of the concealment of the trees and hit the broken asphalt with little resistance, Nancy pawing over Sonny’s map, calling directions over the hum of the engine. Above us, the clouds paint the sky black. We’re driving right back into the storm, but it’s not like we have much of a choice. Joe is on the other side of the clouds.

We drive barely a mile before the splatter of rain hits the windshield, little bullets of water fighting to survive the impact. I tool around with the controls on the dashboard until my fingers trail over the familiar switch near the steering wheel. The wipers don’t work.


	9. nine

_The rain is cold._

It’s nothing like the summer rains back in Bayport. Joe used to wake me up in the middle of the night, bedspread slung around his bony shoulders, and make me climb up to the roof with him so we could see the rolling clouds right before the brink of a rainstorm. We’d practically break our necks scrambling back into the attic before the rain hit the windowpane and then Joe would yawn and thank me for such a _worldly_ experience before crawling onto a ripped leather couch in the corner and falling asleep again.

Now, the rain comes down in buckets. I feel the tires of the truck fighting to keep traction beneath the slippery asphalt, but without wipers I can barely see a couple feet in front of me. It sounds like bullets hitting the roof and each wave comes with a burst of cold air through the cracked windows. My fingers are freezing against the shifter but I press on, hoping that if I just keep driving long enough the rain will give up its battle and let us go about our way. But, like with most things these days, I’m wrong.

I slow to a stop, the engine hitching and gasping underneath me. Nancy rolls over in her seat to face me. “We’re… stopped?”

“I can’t fucking see anything!” I snap, rubbing at my face. I probably look tired and irritated, expressions I never wanted Nancy to see. But she doesn’t turn away from me. Her gaze persists, unblinking. “I’m… I’m sorry. I just can’t see. We’re just going to have to wait this out.”

“The storm should pass.” She says over the drumming of the rain. “Give it a half hour or so.”

So we do. We wait for what seemed to be an eternity, she and I, watching the rain slosh down the windshield and pour over the rusted metal of the truck. After a while, the boom of thunder doesn’t make her scream and instead she just twitches at the sound, watching the angry sky for flashes of lightning. Still, without heat, we’re both freezing, stuffing our hands underneath our thighs to keep them from snapping off completely.

She pulls a sack from the backseat up into her lap and hands me an apple that’s rotted on the left side. I eat around the dirty parts, ignoring the sour taste long enough to feel it drop into my stomach. Beside me, Nancy eats bits of granola, trying hard not to look like a mouse.

We don’t say much. The sound of the rain is comforting only because it gives us a reason _not_ to talk. I’ve never been the charismatic one—that was Joe’s forte—but I could always talk to Nancy. But sitting inches away from her proves to me that we have nothing more to talk about. I don’t ask about her dad, she doesn’t ask me about my parents, I don’t ask about Ned, she doesn’t ask about Joe.

Her voice splits through the silence, slightly louder than the rain. “I’m sorry I never called you back.”

A thin veil of ice drapes over my body like cloth. I want to believe it’s from the rain, but I know damn well it isn’t. “What?”

Her breath makes tiny clouds in the cool air. “You called one day when I was in Colorado,” She says, avoiding my eyes. “You… you and Joe left me a voicemail.”

 _No. Please tell me this isn’t happening_. My only way out of this conversation is plummeting outside into the downpour, hoping that the only thing to accompany me is the sharp raindrops. I stare out of the window, hoping she’ll take my silence as answer enough.

But no, she’s Nancy, and silence is never enough. “You were concerned,” She says. “I guess I just appreciate it, that’s all.”

My breath is stuck in my chest. Finally, I exhale. “It’s okay. Joe and I just did our research about that guy—”

“Victor.”

“—and we just wanted to make sure you were okay before he figured out everything that you knew.”

Done. Emphasis on the _we_ to make me look less pathetic. Because it had been me pouring over case files and scraps of intel from the Network while Joe smeared grease all over his controller in the living room with his twiddling thumbs. And when I’d finally figured out who the hell he was, I couldn’t get to the phone fast enough, banging my knee against the corner of the coffee table in the process. It took two seconds to explain the situation to my brother, who, uninterested before, dialed Nancy’s number and left me standing in the kitchen without much to say before he passed me the phone and I blurted out a bunch of nonsense like cat vomit, ugly and hard to clean up. And then the call dropped.

_Nancy! Please be careful. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve always—_

I squeeze my eyes shut at the thought. I don’t know why I said it, I don’t know what prompted me _to_ say it besides the inevitable danger chasing her around like a flyswatter. Even if she got the message in time, even if something were to happen, I was stupid to think she’d want to know about my feelings for her. Her last breath would be an irritated one, a sharp blow of air, cursing the gods for ever giving her the piece of trash that was Frank Hardy to throw himself at her before her death instead of just telling her when he had the chance.

That was, what, four years ago? Five years ago? I thought she’d forgotten about that now, or maybe would’ve picked a better time to ask me about it. Anywhere but here, in the freezing cold, with her shoulders brushing up against mine and her big lips sticking out in discontent. I’d thought long and hard about what I’d say to her if this conversation ever arose, but those thoughts vanished as soon as she started speaking, as soon as I heard _voicemail_ float from her mouth.

I keep still, hoping the rain will drown out my heavy breathing. She disappears behind her hair, her eyes peeking out beneath a sheet of strawberry-blonde. “It’s so cold.”

“Yeah, it is,” I say, knowing that Joe would’ve taken this conversation to a million different ways— _How cold is freezing in Celsius? Do you think polar bears can tell when it’s cold because of the snow or cold because of the wind, or are they just perpetually cold all the time? What if our blood could heat our internal body temperatures up so we could never be cold again?—_ and I managed to boil it down to _Yeah, it is_.

So much for that.

We decide against driving any further in the storm to risk losing a tire or falling off track, so Nancy shoves her seat down so the headrest kisses the edge of the seat behind her, stretching out to make herself more comfortable. My seat doesn’t have the same sort of adjustments, so I resort to leaning my head against the side of the truck’s interior, letting the rhythmic sway of the rain hitting the roof lull me into a sleep.

I watch the rain drops, mostly, push down the condensation on the window and down into the crevices of the truck’s design. It’s a remedial task, like counting sheep, but it becomes relaxing the longer I sit and stare, so I sit and stare, watching the little droplets race down and disappear.

Then I see it.

From what I can tell, we’re somewhere in a little suburb. Through the rain, I can see structures of broken houses, crumpled bricks and broken glass surrounding the familiar curve of the sidewalk, sealing all the destruction out to one place. It looks a lot like Bayport. The houses—those that are still standing—extend to three stories, all with painted white trim and ugly window shutters. Each house sits as a replica to the one beside it. If it weren’t for the holes in the walls and trash littering the yards, they’d all look the same.

My eyes focus on a house a little farther down from the truck’s position. The entire front half has been destroyed by a falling tree, exposing the insides to the elements. There’s a dresser split in half jutting out of the molding, but then… something moves.

The rain creates this weird mask of uncertainty, but I’m positive something moved.

My hand reaches down for the ignition, one foot already down on the clutch.

“What’s the matter?” Nancy whispers, rubbing one of her eyes.

I don’t answer her. I’m still looking at the space between the dresser and the wall of the crumbled house, squinting to see through the buckets of rainfall.

It moves again, this time more apparent. The shadow has taken the form of an ugly, six-foot-tall infected, wavering in the rain, mouth agape. It appears suddenly from behind the dresser, the moonlight revealing worn, blistered, scabbed skin. It doesn’t pay much attention to the truck, instead wandering out in the middle of the road.

“Frank? What’s going—”

“ _Shh_.”

I’m all but certain Nancy can see it now, her eyes growing larger than dinner plates, moving her seat up slowly so she can sit erect. “Oh my god.”

“Just don’t move.”

She nods, her breath coming out like whimpers, and I reach over her thigh to catch the barrel of one of the handguns before swooping it up to the steering wheel. She remains motionless, watching the creature twitch and convulse in the pounding rain. It’s lost nearly every human feature it once possessed, now standing with an arched back, skin peeling off in layers, thick blisters poking out of its neck. I’ve never seen the virus get this bad.

Even though the rain, I see the infected has no eyes—or, I should say, has deep, red-yellow blisters covering its eye-sockets. It moves robotically, twitching and gawking, with the occasional toss of the arms and legs.

“It’s Stage Three,” I hear Nancy whisper.

“What?”

“Stage Three of the infection,” She muses aloud, then clears her throat, as if reciting from a textbook. “Stage Three: virus successfully defeats a lone, healthy host and seeks out to find another. Symptoms include blindness, increase stamina, red or purple blisters, swelling of the belly and abdominal area…”

The moonlight peeks out through breaks in the clouds long enough to see what she’s talking about. The infected wiggles again, sending both arms up into the air. Its belly is rounded and pushed out morbidly as if someone had inflated his stomach with an air pump. The curvature of its spine is something unnatural, and the way it throws its arms around suggests, to me, it doesn’t have a real sense of pain anymore, let alone a pain tolerance.

Nancy is speaking fast. “It’s blind, Frank. The blisters have taken over its face.”

“Yeah?”

“It means it can’t see us. But it has an increased sense of smell and hearing. Doctors in Quarantine think they can smell for at least three miles.”

My fingers feel the grooves of the key sliding into the ignition until Nancy rips my hand from its position, slicing open the thin skin on my index finger.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?”

She grips my hand, pulling my face down centimeters away from hers. Our noses almost touch. “You can’t turn the car on right now, Frank. It’ll _hear_ you.”

“Yeah, well, it’ll probably smell us out first,” I say, licking the blood on my hand. The taste is somewhat familiar, and it occurs to me that isn’t normal. “We have to get out of here. There are probably more.”

“Don’t move this truck,” she says, bending down to pick up the other gun on the floor.

“You don’t even know how to _shoot_ that—”

“Frank, if you start this car it’ll know we are here. And besides, you won’t be able to see through this rain until it clears up.”

I sink lower into my seat, frustrated. She’s right, but I won’t admit it.

At that exact moment, the truck shakes vigorously, nearly throwing me into Nancy’s lap. She screams, pressing her tiny body up against the frame of the car door, pointing and shaking, her face losing nearly all its color. Behind me, an infected launches itself at the driver’s side door, snarling and wailing, crashing into the car with such force I almost fear we might tip over, sticking us between the asphalt and uncertain death. But the truck stays put, rocking from the infected’s short leaps.

There’s only a slab of cracked glass separating me from the thing’s jaws, and I lean as far away as possible, my fingers working fast over the handgun’s clip. That is, until another infected leaps up onto the hood, clawing and screaming and ramming its head into the windshield. A zig-zagged crack fights through the glass, spanning the length from me to Nancy as the infected hurdles itself down and down.

“Frank!” Nancy screams, fumbling with her own gun.

The infected on my left continues to scream, the noise drowning out the relaxing hum of the rain, nearly splitting my eardrum in two again. Its neck twists back and forth while its yellow strings of fingers pick and prod at the door handle, fighting its way inside. Meanwhile, the infected on top bangs its head against the windshield harder, its throat ripping open with more screeching, convulsing under the storm’s violent touch.

The rain makes everything look worse. The blisters on their faces look pus-filled and humungous, each one larger than a quarter and deep red. Their skin, once resembling crumpled paper, now looks like a damp sponge, dirty and covered in thick, gaping holes with dried blood. And every time they turn their ugly heads to scream their teeth catch the glint of the moonlight, looking like a thousand daggers ready to rip you apart, limb by limb, tooth by tooth, eyelash by eyelash until the job is done.

The banging persists, as does the wailing, and I pull the key free from the ignition and stuff it into my pocket. “We have to go,” I say, loud enough to match their deafening cries. “Now.”

“Go?” Nancy shouts.

“Yes, _go_. Now!”

I don’t have a plan or an inkling of a plan before I barrel out of the door onto the soft earth. The infected hangs on the open metal, confused, batting its head around to try to reorient itself. Nancy scoots over and slides out too, but her ankle gives out on the decline and she cries out in pain before toppling to the ground.

The darkness is intimidating, but I can see Nancy’s tiny body in a heap by the bed of the truck, scrambling to stand with the help of the back-left tire. The infected hanging on the door leaps off, ungracefully, landing somewhere in the mud with a squawk while the other one, still on top, slides off the hood and into the dirt.

“Let’s go!” I scream, pulling her up by her forearm. I push her forward just before an infected leaps in her direction, missing her by a near inch before toppling into the brush.

We both take off in a winded sprint, dodging wet bullets of rain with the infected’s screeches behind us. They catch up too easily, grabbing hold of my jacket and pulling me down with little effort. Nancy screams somewhere behind me, but I can’t see anything except dirt before I roll over, kicking and thrashing about in the mud.

The rain is coming down sideways now, pushed along with the help of the wind, making it harder to stand up. An infected snatches my arm but I manage to pull away, shooting the ground so bits of gravel and rock go flying up around my neck. I get to my knees first and then my feet, pushing off the asphalt and into the sloshy earth, dodging puddles of thick mud that would slow me down. Nancy is meters in front of me, waving her silver handgun around like illegal contraband, too awkward and too weak to point and shoot.

One left turn around the corner of a decrepit house and I’m down on my knees again, using the side of the house as leverage to pull myself up. The infected howl in my ears behind me, slamming into walls and boxes and trash in my wake. I follow Nancy through the darkness, my feet sliding on the grass as we round yet another corner, jumping over a series of potted plants that shatter seconds after my feet touch the ground again.

“Go, go, _go_!”

I tuck my chin to hide my face from the rain and push harder, eventually catching up to Nancy, and pull her hand into mine. She’s breathing out of her mouth and her tangled web of hair sticks to her forehead, a mixture of water and sweat. I take the lead now, dipping in and out of shattered homes, trampling mud onto already-dirty carpet, wiping my face over and over until it feels like my lungs might explode, but the screaming behind me tells me this isn’t over yet.

“In there!”

I can barely hear her over the sound of my heart in my throat, but Nancy veers off back toward the asphalt, jumping over a porch railing and landing on her stomach in the grass. She jumps back to her feet, taking off into the darkness and I follow, turning once to shoot behind me, but it makes no difference. I’m a terrible shot when running, and the wind is making it all but impossible to hit _anything_ , let alone a moving target.

We cover some significant ground in a matter of a minute, putting a few meters between us and the infected. Two more have joined their vicious pack since our first unfortunate meeting, and I have no interest in staying around long enough to watch their numbers grow.

Nancy finally stops short in front of one house with the entire second floor missing, save for the back wall which teeters in the wind, threatening to crash down at any moment. She pushes against the door but it doesn’t budge. Barricaded from the inside.

“Come on!” I yell, pulling her behind the house to find a back door. I find it, all right, but it’s barricaded too, with thick boards nailed all over the place. Panicked, I glance to my right. There’s a chain linked fence, rusted and bent out of shape, surrounding the house next to us. I grab her shoulder and throw her in that direction as the infected come bumbling down the sliver of path between houses, screaming the whole way.

I grip the links of the fence and pull myself over, the handgun sandwiched in my mouth, and help her as fast as I can. It feels like I might break every bone in my body if I take another step.

Nancy is, well, a lot shorter than me, so she swings one leg over the fence and straddles it for a moment to stable herself before swinging her other leg over. Only she doesn’t. Only she’s falling back down on the other side.

It all happens in slow motion.

Nancy, screaming, toppling back over the chain fence, hitting the ground with a smack.

Infected, two of them, ganging up on her tiny body, mouths blackened and sharp.

She breaks free for a moment. Two. Three.

Grabs the fence and thrusts herself up. She’s halfway over now, kicking one of the infected clean in the face.

The other infected grabs her leg again. Pulls her back down.

I shoot my gun. It cracks underneath my hand, the kickback throwing me nearly into the adjoining wall.

Nancy falls forward.

We’re running again. She’s right behind me, crying, tears visible on her porcelain face beside the pouring rain in the sweat. I find a window and thrust it open with all my mind, pushing her in face-forward without much of an apology before I take the same fate, landing on some sort of counter headfirst before my cheek smacks against the concrete floor.

I’m concussed. I have to be.

My vision goes spotty but then returns seconds later. Nancy climbs on top and shut the window, throwing her shoulder into an old bookshelf to cover our path. Through the remaining slit of the glass, I can see the infected scrounging around outside, but they can’t see us. Not yet, anyway.

“Get up,” she says, and my vision sways again. “We can’t stay down here. Get up.”

 

Five minutes later we’re sitting in what appears to be a living room, except most of the furniture is piled up in front of the front door. Nancy went around and checked all of the other windows and doors in the place and, according to her thorough observation, all were locked or barricaded.

She comes back downstairs with a lighter in her hand and flicks it on. The roar of the storm is muted in here, and the moonlight creeping in through the cracks makes everything look gray.

“Let there be light,” she says, flicking on the little contraption. The glow of the flame encompasses us just enough so I can see the edges of her face.

She’s got blood all over her.

I sit up straight, squinting to get a better look. “Your face is a mess.”

“So is yours.”

I rub my eyes and look at my hands, covered in grass stains and clumps of mud. I have no way of knowing if my face is dirty or if my hands just dirtied my face, and no part of me wants to go searching for a mirror, so I slink back down, letting my head rest against the chipped hardwood floor. Anyway, she’s probably right. But my face has been a mess since the eighth grade when my parents thought it would be a good idea to let my dentist decide I needed braces.

I watch our shadows dance in the glow of the flame, keeping my eyes anywhere but on her face. After a moment to catch our breath, I stand up and search the adjoining rooms for supplies. As I suspected, there’s not much to work with, save for some kitchen utensils, a knife, and some clothespins.

I return a few minutes later with a rag soaked with rainwater. I’d managed to pull open the kitchen window long enough to dampen it. “Come here,” I say, watching the circle of light waver in my direction. She moves closer, sitting cross-legged in front of me. “I’m just going to clean the—clean your face.”

She doesn’t protest or ask to do it herself, so I assume that’s permission enough.

I start with her forehead, moving the towel up towards her hairline, ignoring the fraying ends of her hair tickling my forearm. Her breath his hot and sticky on my face as I work, pushing down her temples to her jaw, then making my way towards her mouth and the bridge of her nose.

This part is trickier, not because the blood won’t come off but because she’s staring at me. Instead of following the moments on the rag, she follows my eyes as they go across her face, moving only to part her lips and exhale.

The whole ordeal takes about three minutes but I could’ve sat there for much longer, wiping the dirt from her chin, counting the freckles on her eyelids. It would take me months before I knew every curve of her face, every niche, every pore, every dimple, but I would do it if she asked me. Even though that position is filled, _permanently_ , by a guy miles away with honey-blond hair and a great sense of humor. I have none of that. I'm just Frank.

It’s not like I didn’t have any luck with girls. I did, just not the right ones. I’d dated a few here and there, but my longest relationship was with Callie. That ended way before it started, anyway, since she liked my best friend Adam and I, consequently, found him fucking the life out of her in the backseat of his car one morning before school. Even after that, I spent long hours listening to Joe complain about how he was the _ugly_ brother, and how everyone in his classes always wanted a date with _Frank_ because he’s the _older_ one and he’s _quiet_. I can hear his voice like a record in my head, over and over.

I don’t _want_ the attention. I’m unremarkable at best, with bushy eyebrows and dark hair and my signature Hardy nose, the same one Joe has, the same one my father and his father have. Joe looks more like a rugged supermodel than me, with lean, hardened muscles and a dimple accenting his left side when he smiles, even though he’s nearly always smirking, always looking like he’s up to no good. Girls like that sort of thing. He’d bring home a different girl once a month to meet my parents and I could hear them in his room, kissing and touching and doing all the other disgusting things I didn’t want to picture happening with Joe but it did anyway because he was the _charismatic_ one and I was just Frank. Just Frank.

 _Just put yourself out there_ , he’d say, and I’d roll my eyes at the dinner table and shove more vegetables in my mouth because I was the only one who’d eat them. And now, my face inches away from Nancy’s, his words burn a hole in my brain. Because that can’t happen.

It’s not like I don’t know _how_ to make it happen. My first kiss was in seventh grade to a girl in my Spanish class who tasted like bubblegum. But it didn’t matter because it happened, and Joe bought me a milkshake with mom’s money after school and we celebrated just like we celebrated when Joe kissed Cat Gowan underneath the bleachers during fourth period and took his first drag of a cigarette. He’s the impulsive one, not me. He’d slap girls’ ass in the hallway at school and get yelled at it, he’d sneak out on school nights to go make out with the neighbor girl—who was too _fucking_ old for him, but whatever—and he’d commentate really cheesy porno movies, insisting that the plot lines were actually pretty good. And I, well, I just sort of floated through high-school, kissing girls here and there, and he’d make a big spectacle about it every time, waiting at the foot of the stairs like a toddler on Christmas, stuffing his face full of chips before screaming _Did you do it, man? Did you kiss her?_ but nothing could possibly prepare me for this.

So instead of kissing Nancy Drew, I collapse into her chest, my chest tight, heaving like a little boy. It hurts like a bitch, sobbing. My back hurts and my neck hurts and my eyes feel like they might pop right out of their sockets, but I cry, hard, pushing my face into her collar bone, the water-soaked rang already leaving a stain on the hardwood. And when it’s over, when I finally get the courage to rub my swollen eyes and look up at her, she doesn’t move. She doesn’t say a word. Because silence might not be comfortable for her, but she knows it is for me.

I sleep on the ground next to her that night in my wet clothes, and it’s the best I’ve slept in months.


	10. ten

_Driving up to the QC_ gates would prove to be a disaster, especially since the soldiers would undoubtedly take the truck, so we stash it a mile outside the perimeter underneath a series of pine trees. Hopefully, it’s there when we come back.

We take the rest of the walk on foot, both clutching our handguns to our chest. Nancy tries to call Sonny on her radio but he doesn’t pick up. Either the radio tower is still offline or he’s being reamed for letting us take a truck. For some reason, I hope it’s the former. I wasn’t fond of the blue-haired alien, but thinking of his corpse rotting into the earth doesn’t sit well in my stomach.

We take cover in the brush, the daylight trickling in between the trees. It’s quiet but still cold. I figure it must be October now, or close to it; the leaves are melting into their usual brown-orange, like a setting sun, and the ground feels crisp underneath my feet. Ahead of us, a few meters out, I can see the gate.

Like I’d imagined, it’s guarded with a troop of soldiers all armed with machine guns. They all dress in plain black gear, standing in tandem in front of the entrance. Still, part of me isn’t worried. It’s not so much getting _into_ Quarantine as getting _out_ , but I’m not looking forward to our encounter.

I glance down at Nancy peeking through branches. “They haven’t seen us yet.”

“No,” I whisper. “But they will soon.”

“What do we say?”

I rack my brain for an excuse. The city officials allegedly rounded up everyone who lived in the surrounding areas, including smaller towns and suburbs. Two healthy-looking people wouldn’t have missed, and the guards won’t take our petty excuses very likely, especially since this has been a lifestyle for over three years since the outbreak hit the States. “I don’t know. Maybe that we… lived in the mountains or something?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Mountains? What mountains? We’re in Ohio, Frank. Towards the lake.”

I scour the landscape for a minute before I see the sloping curve behind the buildings pushing down into the shoreline. I collect my bearings for a moment, studying how the buildings are positioned, and reason that we must be closer to the west side.

“Where is Cathedral located?” I ask Nancy, and she looks up at me suddenly.

“Near Chicago,” she answers. “Why does that matter?”

 _Chicago?_ I shake my head. “And… where exactly did you guys pick me up? From the er, supply raid?”

She frowns. “Sonny didn’t tell you any of this?”

“Not really.”

“Michigan border,” she says. “Right outside Toledo.”

I nod. “I guess that makes sense. I just didn’t think I walked that far on my own. But I guess I was unconscious half the time.” She wiggles underneath my tall stature, and I realize my words bite like an insult. “Sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean it that way.”

“So, what do we tell the guards?” She says, stepping back to conceal herself behind a large trunk tree. A twig snaps underneath her and the guards at the gate shuffle uncomfortably, their guns raised in our direction.

I shrug. “We just tell them we got separated. Lost. Somehow survived.”

“You think they’ll buy that?”

“We have to try.”

Before she can say anything else, I stoop down and spread dirt on my forehead, trying to look as homely as possible. Even though it’ll most likely be confiscated, I shove my handgun in the waist of my jeans and Nancy does the same. I mess my hair up (and look more like Joe by the second) and then step out into the open, eyes squinted, hands raised. Behind me, Nancy follows, faking a limp as she walks. She’s a better actress than I thought.

The guards raise their guns and up above, off a distanced tower, a flash of red blinks in the sky. Sniper rifle. I swallow hard.

“Stop!”

“I’m clean, I swear,” I say, chewing on my bottom lip.

The guard, in response, throws me onto the ground face-first. I hit the gravel hard, grass covering the remainder of my forehead. He does the same to Nancy and she falls on her side, grabbing her leg and letting out a panicked cry.

“We’re not infected,” she begs. “Please, we’re lost.”

The guard doesn’t speak. He pulls out a tiny probe and sticks it in my neck. The needle plunges into my skin within seconds and I bark out a tiny cry, grinding my teeth together. After a moment, it’s over, and he’s studying the results on a tiny monitor. “Clean,” he spits, tossing the end of the needle off into the woods. He replaces it with another sharp tip and pokes Nancy too. “So is she.”

Another guard, a tall guy with a clean shave and coffee skin, grabs me by the jacket collar and thrusts me back up onto my feet. His eyes are cold. “State your business here.”

“My wife and I—” I lie, not bothering to watch Nancy’s face. “—live in the outskirts of town. We didn’t realize the trucks came and picked everyone up. We’ve been surviving on our own for years. Please, sir. We’re cold and tired.”

He studies me before turning to her. “He’s your husband?”

“Yes,” she stammers, still lying on the ground. “We walked all the way here for security. Please. You have to help us.”

There’s a long pause before another guard, a woman, pipes up behind him. “Come on, Akers. Don’t have a god complex. They’re both clean. Just let them in.”

He turns around immediately, flashing his teeth in a snarl like a dog who’s been threatened. “Listen, Myers. _I’m_ squadron leader around here so _I’ll_ make the decisions. It’s a matter of safety, not about who can tell the best fucking sob story.”

If she’s scared of him, she doesn’t show it. She pushes out her bottom lip and straightens her gun at her side. “She’s hurt, sir,” she says, nodding to Nancy, who’s still clutching her thigh. “Whether or not their story is true, they’re alive and they’re healthy. That should be reason enough.”

 His nostrils flare. “Okay, Myers. And when this all ends badly, I’m throwing _your_ ass under the bus.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nancy’s on her feet in seconds before they push us through the gate’s entrance and into the spiral of people walking around. There are big military-grade SUVs and tanks pummeling through the narrow streets along with additional soldiers, dressed in the same black garb, patrolling various balconies and corners, looking for action. Beyond the entrance, two grown men lunge at each other, throwing punches and screaming, until a guard rips them apart with ease, shoving them both on the ground before backup—a small group of soldiers wandering the zone—arrives.

Just another day.

Nancy keeps her focus on the ground, watching her feet as the female guard takes us through the normal protocol. First, a shower and mandated pat-down to make sure we don’t have contraband. Then we get our photograph taken for our ID badges. She mentions that Nancy will have to stop in the medical wing before rejoining me for our bunker assignments, where we’ll get our living arrangements and a month’s worth of ration cards. It’s familiar to me, but Nancy nods like the guard is speaking another language, and it occurs to me that this is the first time she’s stepped foot into a quarantine since the outbreak. She’s been living in the tight corners of Cathedral without any idea of what goes on around here.

“Just keep your head down,” I say to her when we’re approaching the administrative unit, a large governmental building made from the structural components of an old grocery store. She nods, wrapping her hands around herself. “I’ll come get you after your medical exam.”

Instead of going into the documentation room, the guard takes a hard right, throwing us into a little room with two chairs and a table. Before we can thank her, she’s gone, slipping out of the door without another word.

“What is this?” Nancy says, squinting in the fluorescence.

The door opens and a woman enters with a long, dark braid swept behind her back. She throws a few papers in our direction. “Fill these out.”

“What are they for?” Nancy asks without looking.

The woman rolls her eyes, annoyed. “They're records to keep on file.”

 _Fuck_. I hadn’t thought about this part. If I told the truth, they’d know I was here before and probably lock me up—or worse—for both escaping _and_ coming back with someone else. And if they see Nancy’s name, surely someone will recognize her. Or she’ll pop up on some unknown database and this entire thing will end before it’s even started. I sigh, hoping to catch Nancy’s gaze, but she’s talking fast.

“How specific do you want us to be on this?” She says, scanning one of the pages top to bottom.

“Very.”

I take a seat, fiddling with a broken pen. Nancy sits beside me, feverishly scratching her face. “I’m sorry, I think I might have chickenpox.”

“Chickenpox?” The woman laughs outright. “What are you, twelve?”

Nancy continues to itch at her face, rubbing her arms and then down to her legs. “Maybe it’s fleas?” She’s stalling the best she can, giving me time to come up with a plan of my own, but my mind is blank, stark white, empty.

The woman shifts onto the balls of her feet. “Uh… I suppose—” She tries to finish, but another woman enters the room before the words can fall out of her mouth. “Katie? What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“Markovic sent me in,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. She’s got chin-length hair the color of a firetruck, but it’s starting to gray at the top, near her scalp.

“ _Markovic_?”

“Yes, Jenna. Alexei.”

“But—but—”

“You’re relieved from this one,” Katie says, waving her hand toward the door. “I got it, don’t worry.”

The dark-haired woman—Jenna—lets her mouth hang open for a moment before turning on her heel and storming out, throwing the door closed behind her. I snap the pen cap off the pen, turning it over in my fingers, waiting for someone to say something.

Katie shakes her head. “You shouldn’t have come,” she says.

I blink, trying to figure out the nearest exit strategy. Katie is lean and brittle-looking, but there are probably guards standing right outside—or within earshot—so trying to barrel our way out won’t work.

“Just write something down,” Katie is saying, gesturing to the papers. “I’ll make sure they get—well, properly filed.”

Nancy stops itching, instead narrowing her eyes. “Katie… wait, Firestone?”

“You probably know me better as Pigeon.”

My hand relaxes. Bird names. Code names. Cathedral. She’s one of Sonny’s operatives.

Nancy exhales, relieved. “Wow, thank you _so_ much, we—”

Pigeon puts up a hand, stopping Nancy mid-sentence. “We don’t have time for all of that,” she says. “You’ll need new identities for your identification cards. If you’re lucky, no one will recognize you. Are you armed?”

I nod, pulling my gun from my waistband and placing it on the table. She sighs. “You’ll get into a hell of a lot of trouble if that find that on you,” She says, offering a sad smile before putting it in her holster. “But I’ll try to make sure you get it back. Somehow.”

“And you’ll tell Crow we were here?” Nancy says, pointing to the header of the papers.

“Bird call went out three minutes ago,” she replies, shaking a little radio hoisted to her hip.

It seems like every cell in my body pushes out a tiny sigh as I scribble down irrelevant information, save for my height and weight. Picking a name gives me little trouble, but I suppose it won’t matter after we’re out again. Besides, people rarely travel with their ID cards unless they’re out past curfew or on work assignment, so I write _Robert Whitman_ because it’s a combination of Robert Frost and Walt Whitman, two of my favorite poets.

Nancy smiles. “Nice to meet you, Robert,”

“You too—” I crane my neck over her arms to see what she’s written. “—Kate Austin.”

It’s her mother’s maiden name, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Quarantine soldiers _have_ the technology to blood test everyone to check for possible signs of infection, but they care little about who anyone is. Fact-checking takes a backseat to medical research these days. I could be Frank the Magical Magician and I doubt anyone would question me on it.

After we both get cleaned up in rusty showers with cold water, Pigeon takes us to the documentation room where we get our picture taken and a fancy laminated QIC—Quarantine Identification Card—that hangs around our necks on a makeshift lanyard. “I’ll spare you the medical exam,” she huffs, stuffing our fake paperwork into a crevice of her jacket. “Just go through the doors over there for your bunker assignment.”

The guards inside tell us to go to _Zone 3,_ an area that borders the lake, reserved for families and couples over the age of 19. From there, we’re on our own.

“So, what,” Nancy says as we begin to walk. “They just shove everyone together?”

I shake my head. “Boys and girls get separate bunkers,” I say, waving to a group of teenage boys throwing empty soda cans at the wall. “I mean, that was the _plan_ , anyway, but it’s not really enforced. And married couples—” I point to her QIC still hanging around her neck with the little embossed _M_ on the right corner. “—are put in different zoning areas. But I don’t know. It’s not enforced, like I said.”

“So they don’t even give a place to _sleep_?” She says, surprised. “What if we get to our zone and no one lets us stay in the building?”

“There are guards around,” I shrug. “They don’t do anything, though. I can’t believe you don’t know any of this.”

She twirls a piece of damp hair around her finger. Even after a shower, she looks dirty and tired. “I remember… I remember getting tested with a needle, like outside the gate. But then Dad and I got separated, and they took me and my things to Cathedral,” She eyes another group of seedy teenagers fishing things out of a drain with a pipe. They stop and stare as we pass, and Nancy draws nearer to me. “Anyway, I… I guess I didn’t think things were this bad.”

“Yeah, they’re bad.”

“I wonder if Bess and George—”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” I cut her off, noticing she’s begun to tear at the edges of our ration cards. “Don’t ruin those. We’ll need them.”

“For what?”

“The Market,” I reply, stuffing them into the front pocket of my jeans. It’s easy to lose things around here. “Just follow me.”

“Frank?” She says, pulling down my shoulder.

“What?”

She lifts the hem of her shirt high enough for me to see the dark outline of the handgun against her stomach. “They didn’t search me.”

* * *

 

When we make it to Zone 3, the warning bell for curfew rings in the distance. The alleyways are small and dark and stink of sewage. Nancy and I walk in tandem, finally pulling ourselves behind a dumpster so she has time to slide the crumpled-up list from the inside of her bra. Insight tells me to look away, but I don’t.

“All right,” I say, glancing around for any soldiers. “We need to find my parents and ask them about Joe. Any information about him will probably be in the documentation room.”

“The one we just came from?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you _see_ how many guards there were?”

My eyes widen, gesturing for her to lower her voice lest someone hears us shouting. “Not at night. It’s not guarded as heavily.” I point to a skinny street outlining the edge of the zone. “My parents are somewhere around here. They got assigned to Zone 3 too. We just need to find them.”

“You two,” a guard snaps behind us. “Curfew. Get your skinny asses inside.”

Like a pro, Nancy stuffs the list in her back pocket, using the dumpster to stand upright. “Yes, sir. We’ll go immediately.”

We shuffle off in the opposite direction, avoiding the guard’s looming stare. “Okay, so first things first: we have to find your parents,” Nancy repeats, out of breath. “And you don’t have _any_ idea where they are?”

“Last time I saw them was…” I trail off, unable to tell the difference anymore. Like most necessities, the luxury of time has escaped me. “We can go where we last saw them and ask around. See if anyone has seen them.”

I lead her down a series of alleys, avoiding the urge to gag as the stench of urine lingers between the walls. Once out in the main drag, I push east, using some old movie posters and street lamps as a guide. We pass a few more guards who give us equally evil stares, threatening to take away rations for a week if we don’t get inside. Finally, we reach a familiar corner and duck into a boarded-up jewelry store connected to a series of overarching apartments facing the lake.

There are several people inside scrounging over their daily rationings—mostly just coldly prepared food and soups—but they don’t pay much attention to us, instead wrapping themselves with torn blankets and telling stories about the “old days”, whatever that means. We head up a flight of stairs, careful not to disturb a couple punk kids setting off firecrackers, and make our way up towards the fourth floor. My dad had managed to pull some strings and got an actual _room_ for him and my mom so they didn’t have to sleep on some dirty mattress somewhere.

I knock three times on the door and wait, Nancy halfway down the stairs still, combing through her half-dry hair. Her oversized jacket almost reaches her knees. It looks big enough to fit me, even.

The door flies open, and before I can say anything, my face presses up against my Mom’s forehead. “Oh, baby,” she cries. “Baby, my baby, my boy—”

Her tear-stained cheek leaves imprints on my face as she drags me down into another embrace, running a hand through my hair. She stills smells like mom, burnt cookies and vanilla and lots of cleaning detergent, and I wrap my arms around her long enough for the sobs to subside. She pulls away, planting another kiss on my chin. “Oh my god, Fenton! Come here!”

“Hi, mom,” I say, feeling sick. Her face looks swollen and she’s aged about ten years in a couple months, wrinkles dotting her kind face. And even after months without seeing her, I can’t look her straight in the face. She has those eyes, _Joe’s_ eyes, blue and big and forgiving.

Nancy closes the door behind her, peeking her head over my shoulder right as my father walks around the corner, his face tired and hair speckled gray. I suppose I look more like him than I thought.

“Oh, Christ,” he says, straightening his shirt. I tower over my mother but only stand a few inches taller than my father and he pulls me close anyway, close enough that I can see the scars on the back of his neck and the bruises covering his arms. I feel like crying all over again, just like I had last night. “God, son. I thought I’d lost you.”

“I love you, dad,” I say to the inside of his stained collar, feeling my throat grow tight.

“I love you too, son.”

And then Mom’s crying again, swooping Nancy up into her arms like all mothers do. “Oh Nancy, sweetie,” she sobs, gripping the back of Nancy’s head like an infant. She’s all _oh_ ’s and _oh my god_ ’s for the next ten minutes, tracing my jaw with her fingers and fussing with Nancy’s hair. I’ve never once seen my mother so upset, so intimate, so affectionate, so torn-apart, not since I was in the hospital after a case and woke up with temporary retrograde amnesia. She flutters between the two of us, back and forth, back and forth, all the while sobbing, all the while smiling, all the while ignoring the fact that half of me isn’t here, that half of me is somewhere else, that my blue-eyed, blond-haired brother is gone because of me.

After about an hour of crying, Nancy wipes her face and sits down on one of the intact chairs in the corner. My mom works at a little gas burner, her face reddened, boiling water for tea.

“You still like tea, baby, don’t you?”

“Not a lot has changed, Mom,” I say, coming up behind her to kiss the top of her head. Her hair smells like smoke and sadness and Dad’s cologne, like she’s spent lots of nights folded up next to his body, crying her eyes out. My throat grows tight again and I sit down next to Nancy, losing my gaze out of a neighboring window, fighting the urge to sleep and never wake up again.

“How’s your father?” Dad asks Nancy, fixing his shirt collar.

“He’s… good,” Nancy says, guilt splashing all over her face. An hour ago, she’d been gasping and gawking about the systems down in quarantine zones, so it’s safe to say she has _no_ idea how her father’s been doing, or Bess, or George, or her long-legged boyfriend. She takes a cup of steaming tea from my mother. “Thank you.”

“God, you look _just_ like Kate,” Mom says, running a thumb over Nancy’s forehead. “I can’t get over it.”

Nancy lifts her QIC card and lets out a sad laugh. “I know. Figured I could be her for a day or two, see what it was like.”

“A day or two?” Dad asks, his eyebrows shooting up on his face.

I sigh. “I need to find Joe,” I say slowly, watching my Mom’s face melt into exhaustion. “Nancy is here to help me.”

I expect my Dad to say something, to shout _absolutely not!_ and yell like a father should. I expect Mom to burst into hot tears and drop tea on the cracked floorboards and beg me not to go because _it’s too dangerous, Frank_ and _please, baby, I love you so much._ But both of them just stare at each other with wide eyes and broken hearts because their other son is out there, hungry, unable to help himself. And how can they look at me with such adoration when there’s another piece of them starved for it? I did this to my brother. I let him slip through my fingers like butter and it won’t happen again. So my parents stay quiet, for now, and let me talk. For the sake of everything, for the sake of my brother, for the sake of their youngest.

“He’s on this list,” Nancy says quietly, pulling out the crumpled sheet from her pocket. “We’re trying to find him along with everyone else.”

Dad takes the list and studies it, his old eyes sparkling with his usual pragmatic flame. “I see,” he says, while my mother fades into the background behind him, looking more like a ghost than a person. “What’s the list for, exactly?”

I stare long and hard at Nancy, hoping she’ll finally tell me what this is all about. “I’m not sure, honestly,” she says, and then she explains it all over again, from the beginning, until my dad leans back in his chair, full of knowledge like after a Thanksgiving meal and digests it.

“I don’t know where he is, son,” Dad says after a long while, pulling Mom’s hand down to grab onto a few fingers. She chokes behind him, wrapping herself in Dad’s oversized sweaters. A piece of me breaks like shattered glass. Watching your mother fall apart right in front of you is like watching a skyscraper tumble to the ground. Something so steady, so sure, so stable. Collapse. Unable to be rebuilt. “We haven’t heard anything. I’ve tried. I’ve exhausted all of my contacts, I’ve fought the guards tooth and nail on the subject, but no one will tell me or your mother anything.”

And just like that, my soul cracks in half. It whines like a newborn baby, screaming out for comfort, searching for nurture in an unfamiliar world. It hurts like a gunshot wound, like I’m bleeding out, like I’m drowning but not actually dying.

Nancy is the first to speak and I’m grateful for it because my throat is raw and scratchy. “I think we might be able to figure this out,” she says. “The group I work for—Cathedral—well, they have operatives inside that will help us get the information we need to find him. And the others. All of them.”

Nancy’s voice is kind and strong and smooth as silk, and Mom sits next to Dad in his tiny chair and nods. “Bring him back to me,” She says to me, my mother, my everything. “You find him and you bring him back to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not crying, you're crying [sobs].


	11. eleven

_Nancy and I sneak out_ at midnight. It’s easy to hide in the shadows away from the guards while we’re in the privacy of Zone 3. Nancy keeps to the walls at my left, dragging her fingers against the broken brick walls stained with vomit and despair. We walk in silence. The reunion with my parents has bled me out and left me exhausted. I’d like to do nothing else but crawl into bed and sleep, but we have things to do.

There are others out wandering the alleyways, but they pay us no attention save for some long stares. We move amongst them, shuffling past drug deals and ration card disputes, avoiding conflict whenever possible. Nancy clutches her handgun, stuffed into her pockets and tucked underneath the hem of her sweater—mom’s sweater—and tries to look brave.

When we make it to the break between zones, I scurry the two of us into a gap opening in one of the crumbling buildings. There are people here, too, dirty men and children and women huddled around a dying fire. “Through here,” I motion to the other side of the room with my hand, retracing my steps like clockwork, the same path I used to take with Joe when he and I would wander around, stupidly, in the middle of the night.

She follows without question, though the pain on her face is unmistakable as she wiggles past two children asleep on a broken mattress. She wraps her arms around herself tighter and slips through a tiny hole in the wall into yet another alleyway, this one facing the break of Zone 1. It’s far enough away that we can see the mountain of guards forming at the crossing point, but like I suspected, there are less than this morning. Behind them, the administrative building peeks out of the fog like a rabbit from its hole, black walls slick against the muddy atmosphere.

“I wanted them to come with me, you know,” Nancy whispers. I turn to face her, keeping my hands on the walls of the adjoining building. It’s hard to see her through the darkness.

“What?”

“Bess, George, my dad,” She says. “Ned. I wanted them all to come with me to Cathedral.” Her voice rises an octave, the words coming out fast and rushed. “I _wanted_ them all with me but they—they wouldn’t let me bring them because—because—”

Suddenly my hands are on her shoulders and she reaches out reflexively towards me, her tiny arms wrapping around my torso. “It’s okay,” I mutter into the tendrils of her hair as she buries her face into my chest. Her body breaks in my embrace, her chest heaving like the waves of an ocean. “They’re safe, Nancy, I promise.”

She calms for a moment, leaning away to tip her head up at me. The circles around her eyes tell stories of exhaustion and hard work. She’s never looked so beautiful. “I didn’t know it was this bad.”

“It’s bad everywhere,” I admit, swallowing hard. The longer I stare at her, the more obvious I become, my face softening at her every word. “You did what you had to do.”

Then she’s gone, her tiny body inches away again, rubbing her blue eyes. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s do this.”

But I don’t want to do this, not now. I don’t want to hear her fond apologies or teach her how to aim with her gun. I want to listen to her digressions and the inflections in her voice, swim in her irises, memorize the curves of her skin. But my thoughts are cut short with another brief reverie of my brother, my baby brother, not tall enough to reach the kitchen counter. There’s not enough time. For anyone.

Nancy is in front of me now, counting the number of soldiers to herself. “There’s six,” She says, nodding to the gate.

“Seven,” I mutter, and she follows my gaze to the wavering tower in the corner. There’s a guard inside, almost blending into the background, most likely equipped with a sniper rifle or some long-ranged weapon.

“How are we supposed to get passed?”

“We don’t,” I say, pointing to the long chain-linked fence stretching the perimeter. I rap my knuckles against the cold wall. “Inside there’s sort of an underground chamber that stretches the length of Zone 1. It’ll put us in a building somewhere over there,” I try my best to point, but the fog makes everything blend together. “Just keep your gun handy.”

“Why?”

“Actually, just give it to me,” I offer, and she grimaces before tossing it to me. In return, I hand her the flashlight from my parents’. “The people who roam down here aren’t the friendliest—and they weren’t very fond of Joe. So just stay behind me.”

I climb through a broken window to my right, careful to make as little noise as possible as I drop to the dust-coated floor below. The air is still. Nancy follows just as careful, straining her eyes to see.

I begin working with the old rug in the center of the room, pushing it up and over the broken floorboards. It moves with little difficulty, revealing a busted door covering a damp hole in the ground. I push it aside, keeping my head down to avoid catching the light of a guard just outside. “Down we go.”

Nancy drops down first, using a series of boards nailed to the side as a makeshift ladder. I follow, making sure to pull the door back over the opening as best as I can before rejoining her. It’s musty and death oozes from the cement. The walls are coated with thick layers of graffiti and the floor is dirty with empty food containers, bullet casings, papers and shredded clothing.

Nancy sweeps the flashlight around the chamber as we walk, flinching as rats scurry through the niches in the walls. We have to duck underneath a few rusted draining pipes, but the tunnel is exactly as I’d remembered. The first few people we encounter are tired and sleeping with bottles littering their feet, unamused or unaware of our presence. Farther down, we crawl into a large basement with overturned tables and desk chairs. The room is empty but the nip of copper is unmistakable, and before I can squeeze through the boards and piping, Nancy gasps.

“Come on,” I say, not bothering to look. “Don’t look at it.”

She remains frozen in place, her eyes wandering the length of the body in the corner. Two gunshot wounds to the head and one in the stomach, blood seeping into the carpet, mouth open, eyes afraid. I tug on Nancy’s arm and she breaks her gaze from the sight, following me through another hole, and then another one until the chamber narrows again, forming into a familiar long hallway.

It almost seems too easy. Walking the tunnels was one of Joe’s favorite pastimes because the walls echoed and it made him feel like a giant. But we never made it out of the tunnels before stumbling across the wrong crowd, and every time Joe would open his big mouth and schmooze his way out of it, his blond hair catching the moonlight like a fox on the chase. Now, the tunnel feels smaller, more confined, restricted, and we’d barely come across anyone. It’s possible the soldiers barraged the place, locking up the felons who lived down here. So much has changed in the last month. I just hope my brother still smiles.

Finally, I find the broken spot in the wall that leads upward. The tunnel stretches on for a mile. There were rumors that it led to the outside world, passed the gates of Quarantine, but no one really believed such things. Any way out was just another way in for the infected. The opening reveals a series of metal rungs climbing up to the first floor of the building, and I go first, pushing the top with my hands until it topples over onto itself. I pull myself up and help Nancy to her feet, shoving the door back down and covering it with a bed frame lodged in the corner of the room.

“A clothing store…” Nancy mumbles as I work, picking up something on the ground.

It’s a shoe tiny enough to fit a newborn, the yellow fabric stained gray from the destruction. She studies it for a minute, turning it over in her hands. It sits comfortably in her palm, a tiny shoe for a tiny person, innocence destroyed by our world. She lets out a heavy sigh and places it on the windowsill of a big glass window.

I almost can’t break the silence. Her eyes fixate on the tiny shoe until I clear my throat, gesturing to a swab of paint on the door to my right. Blue. “Zone 1,” I comment. “They try to sanction things with colors. We’re in the right place.”

“Right,” She breathes, nodding. “What now?”

I crane my neck to see through the crusted windows for the outline of the administrative building. It’s directly in front of us. “There,” I push the pad of my finger into the glass. “The documentation room is on the first floor. We can sneak in through a window.”

Outside, big beams of light shine on the main drag. It’s for the soldiers to see anyone out past curfew. Behind the blinding lights, they sit, posted in their watch building at the hub of the quarantine. I can’t see how many there are but I know the numbers are not in our favor, so I point to the side exit of the store. “We should move this way. There are too many guards out front. Maybe we can find a break in the fence.”

I inch from building to building, scanning the alleyways for soldiers on patrol. We head south for a while, searching for a gap in the light, but none comes. The lights seem to stretch out meters away, and every second we spend outside the security of a building we risk getting caught. We end up sandwiched between two towering buildings with no way to go except back the way we came. The neighboring building offers no escape besides a single open window on the second floor, far from reach.

“We can climb,” Nancy suggests, gesturing with her shoulder to a dumpster in the corner. Even with its extra height, Nancy would have to climb onto my shoulders to make it to the window. “We can see better from up there. It might give us some insight on where to go.”

Against my better judgment, I nod, hoisting her up onto the dumpster first before pulling myself up. She swings her arms around my neck and I grab the spaces between her knees, moving her up the side of the building with little difficulty. I can feel her breath on my neck and fight hard to ignore it, instead letting her climb up my torso. My palms stick to the wall for support as she moves her feet onto my shoulders, grabbing onto the window pane and heaving herself through the opening.

She’s about halfway through when I’m suddenly blinded by an intense light, my knees buckling from the disorientation. I stumble back, losing my footing and falling hard back onto the ground, smacking my head on some wooden crates tossed aside. The light in front of me burns and I move away, yelling something to Nancy. I can’t see more than three inches in front of me and my head throbs.

Then the light flickers out and I’m thrust onto my feet, strong arms lifting me under the armpits. Blood trickles down the back of my throat. I see flecks of white until the confusion subsides, then just a sheet of black armor and a thick machine gun. My heart stops.

Above me, Nancy has disappeared. There’s no sign of her in the alley so she must have taken refuge inside.

“Hello—” The guard says, ripping my QIC from the chain. “—Robert Whitman.” He lets out a laugh. “Clever.”

I don’t say a word.

“I saw you, you know,” He calls up toward the window, but Nancy doesn’t reappear. _Good. Stay hidden._ The guard leaves me alone for a moment and taps the side of the wall with his fingers. “Come on, don’t play dumb. Just come out and we can talk.”

It takes me three seconds to pull my handgun from my waistband and kick the guard in the back, spilling him forward toward the dumpster. The sound rattles through the alley like a gunshot, and Nancy’s head peeks out of the window, her hair dripping out like iron. The guard moves fast, countering my punch with a kick to the stomach and I fall down to my knees again. He tries again but misses, stumbling forward with awkward balance, just close enough so I can grab the remainder of ammo hanging from his belt and chuck it toward the main drag, away from him.

“Just hold on a damn second—”

I’m on top of him in seconds, my side burning with pain, yanking both of his hands behind his back. His rifle clatters onto the ground. I shove him up against the wall, making sure his jaw slams into the brick. Something falls next to my foot and I crush it, pulling back to reveal bent wires and fractured lenses. Glasses.

“I swear to you, I’m—”

Above, Nancy beams her flashlight down long enough to take note of the guard’s face. “Frank, stop!”

I can’t hear her. I’m busy holding him back, pressing his face harder into the wall. Another move and both his arms will snap in half. My blood is angry and hot and pulsing with energy. Sweat outlines my spine and dances around my nose. He took my brother. He took Joe and now he’s going to pay. They’re all going to pay.

“ _Frank_!”

I knee him in the back and he falls with a resounding smack against the asphalt, legs shaking, face dripping sweat. His armor can’t protect him anymore. He took my fucking brother and he’ll tell me where he is.

“ _Please_ —”

I’ve got the gun cocked right behind his head, his helmet thrown to the side during our fight. The barrel melts into his black hair.

“Frank, I’m here to help—”

My teeth split open. The gun feels warm in my hands. I can’t shoot. Not until he tells me where they took my brother.

“Just listen to me, I’m—”

My heart beat drums into my ribcage with a ferocity I can’t place. It’s animalistic, wild, untamed, slithering through my body like the infection. I feel hot, wired, unregretful. Maybe this is what it feels like to change. Maybe I got bit in the tunnels and this is all a hallucination. Maybe I’ve died and have to relive this nightmare again and again. Maybe this is my punishment for the years of brotherhood I didn’t appreciate.

This is hell.

The gun leaves my hand without warning and I smack into the neighboring wall doused in sweat, my breathing rugged and labored.

Nancy stands before me, her body quivering in the cold. The guard is lifeless at her side, but there’s no sign of blood. I didn’t shoot him. He’s not dead. He stirs suddenly, sitting up with a groan.

“Frank, what did you—”

But the guard is already waving her off, rubbing the places around his knee joints. “It’s okay. Survive or be survived.”

 _Survive or be survived_.

My body shakes and my legs feel numb. Nancy looks on in terror, trying to work around what just happened, trying to understand my anger. I have so much to give. It all happened so fast.

“Frank,” She says carefully, searching for my eyes. “It’s John. John Grey. From Colorado. Remember? The ghost hunter?”

Things suddenly snap into focus, painting a picture of darkness. Another look at the guard tells me that she’s right. The glasses, the dark hair, the wide nose. John. One of the only people who were genuinely nice to me on that trip. It feels like decades ago. Maybe it was. Memories of Tino and his men flood my mind.

“I’m…” I try, but my mouth fills up with glue and it’s hard to talk. “I’m so sorry, I just didn’t—”

John is on his feet again. “It’s okay, Frank. I get it.”

Nancy is still looking at me as if my anger is rotting on the outside, eating away at my face. I touch it just to be sure. “I don’t know what came over me, I just—”

He finds my gun and hands it to me, the grip facing my chest. I take it shakily, slapping on the safety before shoving it down into the waistband of my jeans again. Nancy still doesn’t move. I can’t look at her. I can’t feel my legs.

“Let’s go.” He says, and I fall in step behind him, unable to console my thoughts this time. _What the fuck did I do_?

I almost murdered someone.

Nancy follows John at his side, asking him questions about Colorado and his show and how he ended up here but I’m not listening. I can barely focus on walking in a straight line. I don’t even notice that we’re moving past the beams of light on the main walkway, passing through the gate toward the administration building. Guards eye me up and down but don’t move from their stoic positions. I watch my feet, unable to comprehend how I’m still standing. The world feels muted and colorless.

I smack into Nancy’s back as we reach the front door. I mutter what sounds like an apology and wait until she moves again so I can follow. The lights around us are dull and insignificant. Even my heart beat slows to a mere utterance in my hollow chest. I feel empty. I feel worn out. I feel confused.

Once inside, John leads us into the documentation room. He and Nancy are still chatting about the way things used to be. Their voices are muffled and distant. I don’t even pause when John looks over his shoulder to keep watch. My fingers trail through torn papers and stuffed files. Everything feels heavy.

Nancy is working on a computer while John stands in the doorway. She mentions something to me but I ignore her, pawing through another folder stuffed with information. None of it is important. Papers scatter around my feet and Nancy yells at me but I don’t hear that either, instead working my way to the next stack in search of something I can’t see.

She shakes my shoulders and pulls me down to the computer screen. My brother’s name stretches across the top of the documents. There are records of his infractions in Quarantine and even mentions of my own name. My mother’s name. My father’s. Our family.

There’s a detailed report about his transfer to New York. The vehicle was ambushed by a gang of infected and my brother was bitten.

Bitten.

The world seems to stop. Nancy’s voice carries through the thickness but I can’t make out any words. My vision is spotty. I can barely read the tiny print.

Joe was taken to the hospital after weeks without change. He never went through the metamorphosis. He didn’t transition. He’s not an infected. He’s immune.

The word is bolded. _IMMUNE_.

_SUBJECT JH TRANSFERRED TO ARMBOUGH MEDICAL FACILITY IN ROCHESTER. IMMUNITY PATIENT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION._

_ARRIVED ON AUGUST 24TH, 2011 AT 21:02. MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS TO FOLLOW._  

* * *

 

I don’t remember leaving the administrative building or saying goodbye to John. I don’t remember apologizing again for my actions, for almost shooting him in the back of the skull, for almost taking him out of this world for a crime he didn’t commit. I don’t remember Nancy pushing me through a broken, sharp hole in the fence or finding the truck stashed away in the woods toward the entrance. I don’t remember her stalling the car, fumbling with the keys, swearing under her breath. I don’t remember looking back on Quarantine Cleveland and wondering if I’ll ever come back here, to my family, to my mother and father with wide eyes and heavy hearts. I don’t remember anything.

Instead, I remember cold winter nights with cups of hot chocolate. I remember Joe whining about the number of marshmallows he got in his cup compared to mine. I remember walks after school, kicking the asphalt, watching my brother laugh and laugh with the pretty girl in my Calculus class. I remember nights on the roof, so close to the moon we could almost lick its milky outer shell. I remember watching my brother heave into the toilet after a night spent making bad decisions and drinking cheap alcohol. I remember watching his face light up the first time I coughed out a lung smoking weed at Chet’s summer bonfire, the one I almost didn’t go to, and laughing until I felt sick.

I remember blond hair, blue eyes, my grandfather’s dimples.

I remember the smell of his laundry, my mother’s soft grin, baseball practice.

The world is dark and light. Black and white. Right and left. Up and down.

 _I love you_ , I think, somewhere between dying and death. _I’ll find you someday._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :'(


	12. twelve

_The sky is dripping with early morning colors_ by the time I wake up, head throbbing, unable to see more than a millimeter in front of me. The world is black and stuffy and unrecognizable.

“Frank?”

I can’t answer. At least, I don’t _think_ I can answer. My mouth is dry.

The world zooms passed the window at an unrecognizable speed, faint blurs of grey and green, but the first thing that hits me is the smell of gasoline. I shift in my seat and my head responds with an explosion of pinpricks on my temples, sending me back to rest my head on the roughed leather.

My focus sharpens bit by bit during the next few seconds, and when I lift my chin, I see the deep oil-slicked stains coating the bottom of the truck floor. My feet come in contact with one of the old gas containers and it rests up against the front of the truck, a small, oozing trickle of gas leaking out of the side.

I try to frown, but the action makes my head throb harder.

“We—I had a little bit of an accident.”

It’s the first time I’ve looked at Nancy since the incident in QC. She grips the steering wheel with white knuckles, the other positioned on the clutch. I didn’t know she knew how to drive stick, but then again, I don’t know much of anything anymore.

“It’s—fine,” I manage, feeling knives stab at the back of my eyeballs.

She rests her head up against the side of the truck, extending her chin out the open window to catch a bit of the breeze. In the faint sunlight, her cheekbones carve open the landscape in front of us. The years have not been good to her. She was always thin, but now she’s brittle; a piece of parchment with clothes pulled over the rough edges. Her joints—elbows, knees, collarbones—look bony and deformed, clothed in skin that’s too small. Pockets of bruises and faint yellow scars outline her frame, hidden underneath oversized sweatshirts.

But I suppose I look no different. I’ve become thinner myself, looking more like my father by the second with a square chin and budding facial hair outlining my jaw. Not to mention, my clothes are permanently saturated with blood and sweat.

I lean forward finally, resting my hands on the top of the dashboard, feeling the vibration carry up into my forearms. The rearview mirror is shattered, leaving specks of glass in its wake, but my reflection speaks to me through the cracks. There’s a giant, ugly black bruise covering my left eye. I imagine I’d gotten it during my fight with John, right before I almost shot him.

The moment comes back to me in an instant and I’m suddenly back in the alleyway again, this time as a third party, hovering over myself. I’m shaking, visibly, clutching John from behind with his forehead pressed up against one of the dirty brick walls. I’d barely been able to recognize Nancy’s voice over the sound of my own thoughts, but now I can hear her clearly.

Better yet, I can _see_ her down on her knees beside me, pulling at my right arm in an attempt to get the gun off of the back of John’s head. Her face is purpled in the moonlight but the tears on her face are unmistakable and so abrupt that it nearly makes me sick, until I’m forced out of the memory and back to the stuffy truck and the smell of gasoline.

I put up a hand and she stops, instinctively, watching me push open the door with bleeding thumbs and vomit all over the asphalt, clutching my stomach.

“Are you… okay?”

She’s got to be tired of asking me that, watching me bend and break and bend again, but it doesn’t show on her face.

I bring the hem of my t-shirt up to my face to wipe my mouth. “Yeah,” I say. “Fine, I think.”

The engine cuts out and she doesn’t restart it.

“We’re headed north,” she says. “You know, to get Joe.”

“I know where we’re going,” I say. “I just need a second.”

“Okay.”

I get sick again, this time so forcefully that it brings me to my knees on the side of the road, gritting my teeth together with each heave. I have little to nothing in my stomach _left_ to throw up but that doesn’t stop my body from convulsing. I place my hands down in front of me on the ground to stable myself, and once it’s over, I stand erect.

“He’s immune,” I look around at some of the broken cars, trying to distract myself from the meaning of my own words. “He’s… he’s, uh, immune.”

“I know.”

The throbbing in my head has subsided, but it has only been replaced by another deep, overwhelming sensation broiling in the pit of my stomach. “How long have you known about this, exactly?”

“Frank, I—”

“So you knew my brother was _bitten_ by a pack of infected and _transported_ to a hospital in New York, and you didn’t think you should share that information?” I bite, feeling bile at the back of my throat.

“First of all,” she begins, one hand still gripping the steering wheel. “Yes, I… I knew your brother was immune. We… we were trying to find them, but—”

“ _Them_?” My eyes grow wide. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Nancy. This list? The list of people from Cathedral? You’re telling me all these people are immune?”

“Don’t shout,” Nancy says, pushing a strand of hair from her face. “I couldn’t tell you because—”

“Because what?” I throw my hands up. “You couldn’t tell me because _what_? Because we’re related? Because Joe is my little brother? Because you have a secret alliance to some confounded government sanction that you think gives a fuck about you and your family? What? What is it, exactly?”

Her face hardens, but she doesn’t speak.

“I’d really like to know your line of reasoning,” I continue, feeling my blood grow hot. “Because it seems to make _no_ fucking sense.”

“If you would stop fucking interrupting me, maybe I could get a word in.”

“Go right ahead.”

She sighs. “Yes, I knew your brother was bitten, but I didn’t know he was taken to the hospital. I needed your help to find the rest of these people so we can help them get back to Cathedral headquarters and find a cure for this goddamn virus,” She presses the key forward in the ignition, and the engine comes alive. “If I knew where he was, I would’ve told you.”

“Somehow this inspirational speech doesn’t make me feel any better,” I turn my head and spit onto the pavement. “You still knew he was bitten.”

“Okay, so I could’ve told you that he was immune, but what good would that have done? We still had no idea where he was.”

“I thought he was _dead_ , Nancy,” I yell, kicking one of the tires. “It would have least given me some fucking peace of mind, for god’s sake.”

“We don’t know if—” She starts, but then she makes a choking noise with her throat. Her cheeks redden and tiny wrinkles appear on her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

An apology, in theory, should make me feel better, but her facial expression camouflaged behind hair just makes me feel worse. I scratch my scalp, working my fingers through my ratty brown hair. “I just… wish you would’ve said something to me.”

Her fingers loosen around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” she says again.

I spit back onto the asphalt, wishing I had water to rinse my mouth of this awful taste. Nothing more attractive than a guy with pit stains and vomit sticking to the back of his teeth.

She doesn’t say anything else as I slide back into the passenger seat. I’m fully content with making her drive. My stomach is still uneasy and the scent of gasoline wafting through the interior of the truck isn’t making the journey any easier.

“I’m good. Go ahead.” 

* * *

 

Four hours later, I decide enough time has passed to speak again.

“We’re going to run out of gas.”

Instinctively, she shifts her hand on the steering wheel to cover the gas gauge, as if eliminating the problem.

“Nancy.”

“What?”

“We’re going to run out of gas.”

She switches gears. “I know that.”

“We won’t make it all the way there.”

“I know that too.”

I rest my head on the cracked glass, squeezing my eyes shut. “What are your plans once that happens?”

“We’re going to QM.”

I sit up straight. “ _Minneapolis_? As in, the total _opposite_ direction?”

She just shrugs. “We don’t have much of a choice. We don’t have any supplies, and going back to Cathedral would just mean more trouble for Sonny.”

I find that I don’t care what happens to that greasy little punk, but then my chest aches and I feel sorry for it. Sonny hadn’t done anything to me besides given me food and a shower and transportation, time to see my parents, time to gather my thoughts. My mind wanders to him, wherever he is. He could be dead for helping us leave quarantine without permission. Or he could be locked up in a cage somewhere, eyes bulging, ribs peeking out from bruised skin.

Or he could be fine. It turns out I don’t know everything.

I shift in the seat and can barely see the gas gauge falling down on _empty_. Any other day, I’d be searching the tree line, my eyes scanning the thick forest, watching for any sort of unnatural movement. I’d probably also be panicking too, deep down, thinking about how we were going to find a place to sleep or where we could board up for the night so we don’t get eaten. But I’m so exhausted, so drained, from the last couple of days that I just roll my eyes. Literally. I can feel them rotating with such melodrama that it almost makes me fucking sick again.

I fall asleep again easily and without much of a fight.

I dream about Nancy. It’s the first time I’ve dreamt at all, really, besides the random ones that I forget as soon as I wake up. We’re sitting in tenth-grade math learning about integrals, but the teacher’s voice is muffled and I can’t even see who it is. Nancy is beside me, her young-self, happily doodling away on a spiral notebook while her homework rests next to her unfinished.

Time moves weird. One moment she’s answering the question and the next she’s sitting in the back of the classroom. I’m unable to move. It’s like I’m bolted to the chair and my head moves on a swivel, following her every movement. I remember math class with Nancy, back before I moved away and everything changed. Before she met Ned, before I got my braces off. Before we had to say goodbye.

Then, suddenly, we’re standing beneath the bleachers in my old high-school gym. Nancy is staring up at me with wide eyes and it’s the first time I remember her without dirt stuck to her face. She’s beautiful, with ribbons of tawny hair and big, blue eyes.

My hands begin to sweat and she pushes a clump of hair from my forehead. It’s back when I didn’t cut it regularly and let it curl around my ears. She smiles. She likes that sort of thing. She _liked_ that sort of thing. I can’t tell the difference between there and now. My past and present are blurry in all the wrong ways.

With one hand still pressed up against the side of my face, she just lifts her chin and kisses me on the lips. I stand there, shaking, worrying about my braces not fitting in my mouth correctly and her jasmine perfume.

I wake up when Nancy steers us over a giant chasm in the road. The tires go squealing and she bites her lower lip at the resistance, quickly pulling us back over the asphalt. Her reflection in the glass window is shattered and imperfect. That’s the type of Nancy I’m dealing with now. Not the one that was below the bleachers with me, kissing me like she’d never stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i am SO sorry i went on hiatus... literally been having such bad health problems and school swallowed me whole. but i'm slowly picking this back up. i had to go through a lot of my notes to reorient myself and i forgot how much i loved this story. so here's a short little chapter for ya'll who've stuck with me, and i may or may not be specifically calling out @thehardycharm right now.


	13. thirteen

_We make it to Minneapolis a couple hours later._ I was asleep for most of the 18-hour endeavor besides waking to argue with her about the status of my brother. That was all.

Good timing. As soon as she draws near to the QM fence, the truck starts to rumble. She cuts the engine in a patch of trees about a quarter of a mile outside the premises and leaves it there, empty, but I’m already ten steps ahead of her. I can hear the keys jingling on her body when she comes near.

We’re somewhere along the south edge of QM, but it looks the same as the rest. Guards are posted in tall platforms above the entrances, keeping watch on the surrounding forest. From our position, they can’t see us, and I know they’re more focused on the patch of land just outside the fence between the forest. It’s open area for the marksmen, and they’ll waste no time picking us off like target practice if we think about coming any closer. Another stunt like in QC won’t work, either. They’ve already got our names and faces locked in the registration database. They’ll know we’re missing from roll call. Besides, I’m pretty sure Nancy doesn’t want to pretend to be my injured wife again. For more reasons than one.

She points to a section of the fence that’s being repaired. It’s a chain-link fence with giant spears lining the top, but this specific section has breaks in the metal and looks big enough for someone to pass through. Nightfall would be our best attempt, but the sun hangs in the middle of the sky. It’s barely early afternoon, and we can’t afford to sit here and wait by the car. Other things more dangerous could be close by, and I’d rather take a bullet than a bite from an infected.

No one really knows what happens to a person on the inside once you’re bitten. Some people speculate it feels like knives running through your body and other people claim it doesn’t feel like anything. Problem is that everyone who’s bitten is either shot or left for dead, and even if they weren’t hostile, their speech functioning depletes so they wouldn’t be able to say much anyway. That’s how you can be sure there is an infected nearby—you hear them before you see them.

“We need some sort of distraction,” Nancy whispers below me, and when I look down I realize she’s nestled right beneath my chin almost, pressed up against my front to keep concealed. I try not to let it bother me.

“Right, but what?”

There are a couple stones close enough to me that I could potentially chuck one over the fence, but all that would do would just cause more suspicion to our whereabouts, and we’d be dead within minutes.

Nancy seems to sense my intuition, because her eyes fall down on the rocks too but then she shakes her head, turning to face me. On an instinct, she brings her fingers up to rest right by my left eye, where my bruise is purpled and swollen. It looks a hell of a lot worse than it feels, but her touch makes it a little better, just for a second, before she pulls her hand away.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“My eye?” I say stupidly, hoping my face doesn’t melt red. “Not really. I mean, sort of. But only when I put a lot of pressure on it.”

She turns away from me again, and I peer up at the branches, watching them split and divide the afternoon sky. It’s like watching the clouds through fragments.

Suddenly, I cup my hands around a nearby branch and snap it between my palms as quiet as possible, repeating the process with several other branches closest to me. Nancy watches with confusion until I point to the other side of the brush across the clearing. We might not be able to distract the guards _inside_ QM, but we might be able to draw their attention somewhere else.

She takes a couple of stones and waits for my signal. I nod, and she shoots the rock way up into the sky, so far up that it begins to arch and descend about a couple hundred feet to our right. It hits a couple of trees and drops to the sultry earth with a tiny thud, quickly followed by a couple softer noises as more rocks follow its trail, accompanied by some of my branches. The sight is enough to look like there are people over there and it’s already caught the attention of the guards closest to the fence, who quickly raise their machine guns and motion for the other guards to follow suit.

We only have a couple minutes while they focus on the rustling beyond us, so Nancy dips out of the coverage of the trees and starts for the fence, dropping down behind a shed that’s covering her back from fire. I wait for a moment, watching the marksmen waver on their towers, listening for signals via the radio for any more sounds coming from afar. When nothing happens, I take my shot, quickly collapsing near Nancy.

I peek my head around the corner. There’s one guard standing in front of the shed’s door, almost like he’s protecting the entrance. It’s possible it’s a weaponry hut, or maybe it’s a food rations hut, but I can’t see far enough around the doorway to make out what’s inside. The guard is focused elsewhere, on the two guards scrambling around the other side, watching the trees for the noise we’d made before. We don’t have much time; they’ll soon send a squad out to check the debris and make sure there’s no infected lurking nearby, which means we need to move faster.

The fence is just a standard, barbwire fence with boards fastened at various places for amped protection. After the outbreak, soldiers scrambled to make safe zones for the citizens that remained healthy, but they didn’t have much military-grade steel or other materials to use for the borders, so they did what they could. Any infected weighing more than two hundred pounds could probably maneuver their way over the walls, which is why they have armed guards at every station for protection.

The good news is that there’s a break in the part of the fence closest to us. The barbwire is attached to metal poles that are brought together with the thick slabs of wood, but the closest break to us is under maintenance. The barbwire is left dangling, unattached, to the next metal pole in succession, but it’s right in the middle of the area covered by over a dozen guards, including the one guarding the hut.

But then a miracle happens. I hear the long, loud exhaust from the bell whistle in the distance, which means that it’s time for lunch for the citizens living in the quarantine. It also means that it’s time for shift change, as most of the guards standing near us have been working this specific post since the early morning hours if this quarantine is anything like QC. Joe and I had learned most of the guard routes when we were still together sneaking around past curfew.

Some of the guards idle by the fence, still peering into the forest, but then they retreat. From my peripherals, the snipers on the towers start to shimmy down the ladders back to solid ground so others can take their place. Even the guard by the door looks antsy, like he’s waiting for someone to take over for him so he can go lie down for a few hours.

“This is it,” I breathe, and Nancy nods. Once the guard by the shed door starts to leave, we have seconds to slip through the fence unseen and duck behind the nearest object to remain hidden.

The guard relaxes his stoic pose, and squinting down the cluttered fence line, I can see why. There’s another guard on the way. We have to go now, as soon as the guard wavers. Sure enough, moments later, he starts his stride toward the dark alleyways beyond the fence, and new guards are busy climbing up to their respected towers. I spring forward from our hiding spot, careful to avoid being stuck by the wire, and pull back strips of the metal for Nancy to sneak through.

Once she’s concealed behind a large, rusted piece of equipment, I peel the metal back in the opposite direction and squeeze through myself. Some of the spikes catch on my t-shirt and rip the fabric, but I manage to get through to the other side unscathed. I hide behind a stack of rubber tires, pressing my face up against the side to see the tip of Nancy’s head over the metal machinery. The guards are nearly toward us, and if any of them break their walk, they’ll spot us in seconds. But the guards are chatting about something irrelevant, pointing to something unrecognizable in the distance, and barely even glance in our direction. There are only handful of objects in our path big enough to conceal me, so I plot out our escape quickly, all the while watching the guard that was once manning the door of the shed make his descend down the pavement.

All of a sudden, Nancy’s tiny body slams into mine, nearly pushing me over. She’d run from her spot behind the machinery to be near me, still clutching the handgun at her side. Part of me wants to take it from her while the other part of me can’t even bother to look at it after what happened at QC, so I leave it with her for now. We can’t make any more noise.

Nancy grabs a fistful of rocks and bits of metal and tosses it back over the fence to our left, back toward the sight of our diversion, and the guards flinch in response. Some yell over their shoulders to one another, but none of them to look in our direction. With their backs turned toward the noise, I stretch out and head toward a set of metal pipes strung together with thick rope. They’re only a couple of feet off the ground so Nancy and I have to lie almost flat to avoid being seen. In the towers, the marksmen flit their scopes around the edge of the brush, still searching for the source of the noise. I guess they don’t take any chances, especially when an ambush could be right around the corner.

“If we make it down there,” Nancy whispers, “we should be okay.” She points down to where the ground seems to split in half, revealing cracked pavement and tall, broken buildings like the ones in QC. Easy to hide. I nod in agreement and start crawling backward, away from the formation of guards at the mouth of the fence. If they were to walk a couple feet past the fence, they’d probably find the truck and wonder how the hell it got there. But by the time they’d be able to question it, Nancy and I would already have meshed into the throng of people, undetected. Sneaking around is my only talent. I’ve got at least twenty pounds on Joe, but yet I’m always the one that manages to get around without much noise.

“This way,” Nancy calls, pulling herself up to walk with her knees toward some scattered crates and bottles right where the pavement ends and the city begins. I start to stand again, glancing back over my shoulder to the guards behind us. Some of them have resumed their normal routes around the grounds but none of them are bothering to turn toward us, so I quicken my pace to a jog, rubbing the spot on my shirt where the metal had torn through. My bare skin peeks out through the dirty fabric. Even with a tattered jacket, I still feel cold.

We round a series of dark alleyways, looking for a spot to break through into one of the buildings. I have no idea how this quarantine is set up, so my knowledge has run out. I keep to Nancy’s side, checking around every corner with her before darting out through the dim lights. Some people are out wandering, which isn’t unusual for lunchtime, as some people go days or even weeks without ration cards to use at the lunch stations.

We jog through a longer alley filled with smoke and grease until Nancy starts to cough, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater. I can’t see more than a foot in front of me, but I can hear the roar of the crowd beyond the building. We must be near the back entrance of one of the lunch stations, because the scent of overcooked food wafts through the air, immediately making my stomach growl. Some portly men curse to themselves back and forth and throw bags of something into a room to our right, but they don’t pay attention to us. Citizens aren’t allowed to come back here, but I doubt they know the difference anymore. They’re just doing their job, trying to stay alive like everyone else.

When my family first got taken to quarantine, my mother was given work order as an elementary school teacher. She’d never taught a day in her life, but somehow the soldiers thought she looked like the type to work with kids, so they made her get up at these unruly hours every single morning and help fourth graders with basic math. Even with Dad’s astounding connections in Bayport, nothing mattered in QC. We weren’t people anymore. We weren’t the Hardys. We were just numbers, people to keep safe from the dangers outside, even if the dangers inside were just as terrible.

Dad managed to get Joe and I out of work order after my mother came home crying about the kids she was supposed to help. She had no idea what to do for them—some of them were sick, others were orphans, and all of them were scared. Dad figured enough was enough and asked to speak to the Head of Security that same day. The next day, Mom got released from work and Joe and I got to stay with them in Zone 3 instead of in the bunkers with the other boys our age.

I almost trip over Nancy’s heels as she stops in the middle of the brick walkway, just past the cooks. Through the smoke, I can see the guard from earlier—the one situated at the shed’s door—waving his gun in our direction.

It happens in a matter of seconds.

One second, my hand is on the nearest doorknob of the lunch station, pulling with all my might to let us in. The commotion in the distance, the men moving the food and cooking for the citizens, melts into gunfire. And when I look up again, Nancy’s got the handgun outstretched in front of her, arms shaking, and the guard is nowhere to be seen.

I grab at her, pulling her into the nook of the doorway, before she can even think to move. Behind us, the men work without notice. They don’t even realize the body at the end of the stonework, deep pools of crimson running toward the drain. The guard’s body is lifeless and color fades from his face. He’s dead. She shot him and he’s dead.

I’m too fixated on the guard’s body to notice Nancy’s body crumple up against mine as she collapses, the gun falling down to my feet. I hoist her upright, pushing sticky strings of hair from her face, and for a moment, I wonder if she’s been shot too. But then she comes alive again with my touch, squirming against me, mouth open. I shove a palm over her lips as she screams into it, breath hot against my hand.

“Nancy,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Nancy, Nancy, _come on_ , Nancy—”

She’s still fighting me, eyes glazed over, but I tighten my grip on her shoulders. It’s the last thing I want to do, but letting her collapse in anguish will certainly bring more attention to our already-exposed position, and I can’t let her get hurt anymore.

“Nancy,” I say, feeling her chest heave against my arms. “Nancy, listen, listen to me, it’s okay, _it’s okay_ , just breathe, okay? Just breathe. Listen to me. Listen to my voice—”

I have no idea if what I’m saying is actually helping, but she seems to relax a little bit while I talk, so I keep going, repeating myself mostly, until her breathing slows. When I take my hand from her mouth, she presses her whole head into my palm.

“What—did—I—do—”

“ _Shh_ ,” I say again, gripping the back of her head. I push her face into my chest, holding her as tight as I can while still keeping half of our bodies concealed by the brick. We have to move. We can’t stay here with that body so close. Someone will see us. “Come on, we can’t stay here. Someone will see—”

She heaves again, her words broken by heavy sobs, before she tilts her head down and gets sick all over my shoes. She spits away from me, coughing and crying at the same time, before looking up again.

With my thumb, I push away some of the spit from her chin and wipe it on the back of my jeans. It almost feels intimate. I tell myself she’d do the same for me.

“You have to be quiet,” I say to her, and she nods, still crying.

I pull her down the alleyway, steering clear of the body, and into the nearest crowd of people. Some push back, shoving us around like a pinball machine, until we stagger towards more buildings, heading north. The guards are preoccupied with the starving crowd and barely notice us as we push past, making our way towards the living quarters. Someone has to let us in. Bess and George have to be somewhere around here.

I almost stop in the middle of the path thinking about Ned. I have one arm wrapped around Nancy, who clings to me like a wet paper towel, still crying. I wonder if he worries about her. How long have they been apart, exactly? Two months? Three? A couple years?

What would he say when he saw me, of all people, with his girlfriend?

I lean up against one of the walls, pulling Nancy with me. I’d left the gun behind but I don’t care. It was out of ammo and someone will pick it up and get blamed for the murder of the guard. Not us. Not me. Not her.

Suddenly, the window of the building flies open and an arm grabs onto Nancy’s collar. I’m just about to come down on it with my fist when a familiar face pops through the grimy glass. Dark curls spill down from the wooden windowpane.

“George,” I say with a relief, and Nancy twists around to see. “Thank God.”

She looks less than happy to see me and waves us both inside. “Get the fuck in here,” she says, and when Nancy doesn’t move, she adds, “Before someone sees you, for god’s sake.”


End file.
